Solo Solo box-office discussion

@vong333

I hope Disney re-releases Black Panther to give it one final push over $700 million domestically. Both that and IW deserve all the praise and cash they are getting and more.

 

I'm stealing this.

 

28 million now away from Star Trek Beyond worldwide.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek2016.htm

Will it do it? I don’t know why but I see this as the new modest goal for this film.

 

Nice.

 

I don't get it because his trackrecord with denouments or franchise management isn't great and I'm skeptical on anyone's ability to deliver a "crowdpleasing" conclusion to the saga as things stand right now wrt to cards still left on the table. But bon courage.

I wish BOM would update the foreign break down for Solo. I'd like to know how it's doing in the UK in particular.

 

Looking at Box Office Mojo, I see that a lot of the International totals (UK, France, Germany) were last updated on June 3rd. That updated total should raise the Foreign and Total box office numbers quite a bit over the next couple weeks.

And Star Trek Beyond made about $30M domestically after it's third weekend.

If Solo can match that, it will break $200M domestically.

I don't know about the updated International take but it seems it will end up around $400M.

 

Top 5 Solo overseas markets after 3rd weekend

UK $21.8M.
China ($16.3M)
Germany ($12M)
Australia ($11M)
France ($9.3M)
Japan is still on the flight deck June 29.

Its at $ 312 mill www ( $ 136.7 overseas) BOM is very late with updating the individual countries numbers. Still the total number is correct.

 

Rouge One had $440 million domestic after just 18 days ,

Solo won't get anywhere near that worldwide in it's entire run

 

We know.

 

RO followed the wildly popular and uplifting TFA.

It wouldn't have made that kind of $$ following TLJ either.

 

That would get it above Mad Max Fury road. A movie that had academy award wins, far better critical acclaim, a decent budget of its own, and also a reasonably low stakes adventure about natural resources (among other things obviously) and a recast iconic role from the 1980s.

Considering the middling reviews, low stakes advertising and how close it was to the another Star Wars film... that wouldn’t seem that bad to me if the other Star Wars films hadn’t obviously done so much better and if we hadn’t associated the brand with those heights all the time. Other studios can turn profit off $400 million dollar range films.

I’m not convinced that if you release a new movie even a year (much less 2 in a year) for this brand, given that it has less overseas appeal than Marvel, and given that these humans without powers origin stories opposite super hero origin stories might not be all that exciting to millions of people under the age of 18... maybe they just need to adjust the model and expectations due to all of these factors and just better plan accordingly. If other studios, including the creators of the Trek films, can high five over sub-$450 million dollar BO returns than I don’t see why this studio can’t on higher volumes of a movie a year between higher stakes original trilogies alongside these that they spread out more and put more into and expect more out of.

Lower the budgets a little more. Oversee the budget a little more. Reduce the advertising a little and better target it. Get better reviews. Choose anthology films that intrigue people who aren’t Star Wars fans already.

 

I think the odd thing with SOLO is that it really does set out to deliver the type of fun and enthusiastic Star Wars adventure that fans of all ages could enjoy....the kind of movie experience that made people fall in love with SW in the first place. And it achieves that.

It's like they took into account the major complaints and concerns they received and turned around and delivered the anti-TLJ in basically every way possible.

And they did it with one of the franchise's premier characters.

Sure, the placement of the release date on the calendar was a disastrous decision. But LFL really set out to make, and then delivered, on the kind of SW movie that should attract mass audiences.

I know this isn't a TLJ thread and I don't hate TLJ at all....though I have some issues with it. But I think it's time to really consider the damage TLJ inflicted on the brand and within the fanbase. It's larger than I initially thought, and I think people inside the walls of LFL are now internalizing that also.

They did everything right with SOLO except for the release date. But something has changed.

 

Last time I checked the Mad Max IP was no where near the level of Star Wars IP. Solo making as much as Mad Max Fury road only shows how much the Star Wars brand has fallen.

 

The question is, has the brand been permanently damaged, when similar situations have failed to damage it previously, or were people apathetic to a non-Ford Han Solo movie, sentiments that were expressed by fans generally even before TLJ?

 

I’m really not convinced the negative impact of TLJ is as big as that. I mean, going from making 1.3 billion to struggling to make 400 million, worldwide? The division caused by TLJ just cost about 400-500 million dollars in BO receipts (assuming that Solo would have made about 800 million)? No, I don't buy that. There may have been an effect, but nothing of that magnitude. As fans, we have to understand that most “normal” humans just don't care about how Luke was handled, or that Rey's parents were “nobodies", or that Snoke was nothing but a giant red herring, and so on. Not everyone didn’t care about those, but I think most didn’t.

It’s too soon to say now, anyway. The only sure way of knowing of any impact is seeing what happens with Episode 9. If it has an opening weekend of just a little over 100 million (or even less!), then you (and others) are most likely on to something. But yeah, how Episode 9 does in the BO is the only sure way to know.

 

Hell ya

 

I think the non-Ford Han Solo angle is a legitimate component to SOLO's underperformance, along with the release date and the marketing approach.

But that doesn't cover it.

The truth is -- there is no similar situation to our current situation in the history of the franchise because no previous instance involved the ending of Luke's story. And with the way it was handled....yeah.

I really hope the ST is building a new SW fanbase with a new generation (if they really are....it sure didn't materialize for SOLO) because it seems like they've sure traded out a pretty big chunk of their old one.

 

Incredibles is going to beat Dory's OW. Looking at $140-!50 million. Geez! It has a 97% already and 95% top critics. Will this thing have the typical 3-3.6 pixar multiplier?

Typical Disney. One disappointment and BOOM a movie that outgrosses the expectation. Then another disappointment and BOOM they knock it out again!

 

I think there's some truth there. If Episode IX comes out surpasses $1B plus WW then we will probably look back at SOLO's commercial failures and focus on other factors like release date, marketing, budgeting problems because of re-shoots, blockbuster competition, no Harrison as Han, etc...

But the I don't think it's too soon to say that the immediate reaction of the GA and within a large segment of the committed fanbase has been largely negative. It's more apathy than anger....just an exhausted feeling of not caring anymore. I don't think it's too soon to discern that sentiment based on observations with friends, family, and fans in real-life and online. Just a general feeling on non-excitement. And I don't say this is a TLJ hater.

But in this situation, there's really a there there.

 

I know in my case it's never been like this, because the core solid OT story which underpinned my love or tolerance of everything else SW is now broken and driven into the ground. Solo would have been something I liked/tolerated in the past with maybe some criticisms and bits of praise, but the thing which would have gotten me to see it in the first place is gone. It's honestly a bit sad, it was a good hobby and I wish they'd been more careful, or I hope they commit to pulling a gotchya and this is the prequel story of a failed evil alt universe which connects to and 'invades' the real SW universe with the real characters and a legitimate believable evolution of the original story which isn't just a reboot, starting up a new dynamic of the Schism Saga or something, or else going by my experiences at least as a pretty hefty but subtle fan who would never dress up or attend the cons or whatever, Star Wars is going to find that these new box office performances and related product difficulties are the new norm.

 

I don't understand why the contours of the "why did Solo not perform well at the BO?" discussion hasn't narrowed in this thread, after the Creutz analysis: https://cowen.bluematrix.com/sellsi...df&co=cowen&id=david@deadline.com&source=mail

Doug Creutz's report (Creutz is a respected media analyst with a normally rigorous methodological approach) represents the only reliable information we have about why Solo didn't perform. And the findings are:

1. A far too short marketing campaign (3 months)
2. A marketing campaign that didn't do nearly enough to sell audiences on Ehrenreich as Han

That's it.

This is not surprising, either. Because if you ask yourself "What were the most significant differences between Solo and the other films?" it's that it had a very short marketing campaign, and a recast popular character. Not that the previous film wasn't well-received by audiences (which was a situation AOTC and ROTS faced).

And yet...it seems as if the debate here has almost entirely ignored the only solid information we have on the causality of the low Box Office. People are still proclaiming, with almost total certainty, that TLJ's so-called "divisiveness" was a major factor in this Box Office result.

Therefore, my question is: Why has the debate not narrowed a bit around this information? Why are so many still so adamantly blaming TLJ for Solo's financial problems, when the only analysis we have says otherwise?

 

I get how culturally significant BP is, especially in the US....but as a movie...i watched it a couple of weeks ago and while it's not a bad movie at all and has a couple of good scenes and ideas it still falls in every modern blockbusters traps: questionable visuals and designs (and bad CGI), nonsense action/editing, a sense of deja-vu, lots of silliness and that uber-mainstream movie feel, like it's trying so hard to be cool and to aim for the teenager market.

I dont want a Marvel vs SW debate, but there's a clearly different approach when it comes to these 2. Probably a matter of taste, the last 4 SW movies are more in line with what satisfy me when i go to the theatre.

 

Kevin Feige succeeds where Lucasfilm fails, Jeremy Jahns did a good video on this subject.

The right wing political messages in the Marvel movies go unnoticed while the Left wing messaging in the Disney Star Wars movies has become a major point of contention.

 

The difference between Feige and Kennedy is that Kennedy is actually interested in film-making.

 

Please, guys, just stop with these comparisons. They simply don't make any sense.