Solo Solo box-office discussion

You and @Darth Smurf nailed it perfectly.

And trying to untie Solo BO to the overall issues many have with Disney Star Wars is futile and misguided imo.

 

Exactly! Star Wars used to be the Titanic, unsinkable. Unfortunately, Star Wars has hit a iceberg. Now, people can accept the ship is sinking and get into a lifeboat. Or they can stay on the ship, pretending everything is okay.

 

Just for the record, Solo's current trajectory heads it towards the bottom quarter of the top 100 worst losses for a movie, with inflation. It's a disaster, but not quite on worst of all time level.

 

Disney doesn't give two craps whether SW or Marvel pees further. It's like having two best restaurants in your area compete for better food and reasonable prices. It's a win-win for Disney who benefits from both. The notion that since Marvel is doing better they need to can Kennedy is ridiculous UNLESS SW makes no money. Solo means they need to keep a watchful eye but in NO WAY should they change ranks now just as IX is about to start filming. There's a reason FDR won 4 terms as president during WW II. Solo makes Disney have a watchful eye but no changes will take place until at least after IX comes out. If IX is a huge upsurge then things are fine. If IX sinks low (not sure how low it will have to shrink) then there may be some changes in order to smooth out the direction going forward. Because after IX, things will get rocky for SW unless there is an absolutely beautifully laid out path. Even then, who knows. SW is still one of those things that many young people (pre-college) don't want to admit openly that they like.

 

That's not exactly true. We've seen Disney make changes with several of their IPs (Marvel, ESPN, etc...) after failures, even if they didn't lose money. There are degrees of expected success.

If there was a 3rd option of trying to fix the ship then this would be a perfect analogy. No doubt Star Wars has some issues now, no doubt some are abandoning and some are doubling down. But it doesn't mean yet that the ship is doomed. If IX continues on the trend since the 2nd week of TLJ or not is the billion dollar question.

 

One movie tanking and now we have a SW issue? Just because kids are more into super heroes these days than jedi and smugglers?

Meanwhile Marvel gets a free pass for what is mostly a collection of unpersonal, fx-obsessed, ultra-light action show... just because these fims are so innofensive that there's nothing to talk about...

Is there anyone past their 25 who seriously think Avengers and all are great movies or better than the last 4 SW?.

i read stuff about not wanting to see war-weary old Luke because older fans want to cling on to their youth? Am i the one to think it's on the contrary emotionally strong to see our perfect idols ageing and revealing their weakness?

oh and the "please the fans, listen to the fans" concept...some people dont seem to be passionate about movies but ordering a meal at their local restaurant ;-)

 

No, the ship isn't sinking yet, it's just that the captain, crew and many of the passengers consider it bad form to so much as mention the large cracks in the hull.

 

I hope that rant made you feel better. Meanwhile, I will place far more weight on a report from a respected media analyst than on a fan whose analysis is heavily influenced by his opinion of a film he hated. Is this one report sufficiently explanatory? No, there probably needs to be a tad more analysis. But it's the best and most rigorous analysis we have so far, and we should be discussing that. Instead, this thread (and many across this forum) are being slammed by relentless and unsubstantiated "facts" about why LFL is crashing and burning.

 

LOL. No doubt.

With the trends of BO falloff of TLJ, sudden drop in merchandise sales, then BO for Solo here clearly is an issue with the franchise. Putting Solo in a vacuum for its failure or to ignore all the other variables feels intellectually dishonest to me.

 

If we want to follow your culinary analogy, Solo can arguably be considered the Big Mac of movies, with the difference that the Big Mac was something people were willing to buy.

 

You seriously need to work on cutting that passive aggressive BS, you're not automatically worth listening to and don't deserve everybody's time by default.

What you called 'rigorous analysis' gave one sentence to rejecting the idea of whether the last film hurt this one, with no mention of how many major franchises have seen the exact same pattern after a disliked movie, just "hey didn't they dislike the prequels too? surely it's the same" as the extent of their 'analysis'.

People in this thread alone have done more actual 'in depth analysis' by looking at how the overall franchise has fared on multiple fronts since the last movie, from toy sales to disc sales to the drop off of the legs on the last movie, as well as highlighting that there's a clear precedent for major franchises to indeed go down if audiences aren't liking what they're seeing - even on apparent safe bets like The Hobbit and the DC Movie Universe, increases or even holding steady aren't some guaranteed thing at all, there is a clear and simple-to-understand precedent of audiences needing to be happy.

 

Since it's trendy to digress on that : TLJ didn't reveal a weakness of Luke when the movie called for him drawing a lightsaber on the sleeping young Ben, it went completely against the character people knew for 40 years (Luke literally never gave up and sought to redeem the incarnation of evil in the galaxy), with the only explanation as to why Luke would have done this complete 180° turn being another 180° turn, this one without explanation whatsoever, having Luke literally state the Jedi need to die (when we last saw him, he proudly announced he was a Jedi like his father before him).

The first 180° turn, in itself, isn't the problem, as long as you get there sensibly for an established character everybody knows. Getting there by another, unexplained 180° turn, on the other hand, is extremely bad storytelling - it's tantamount to telling people to forget about what they watched before, "this is how things are now". Compounded by one of the movie's most standout lines literally saying "let the past die, kill it if you have to".

That's something that gets people to doubt there's still direction for a franchise, and it is going to impact the next opus in the franchise, one way or another. Especially one which is all about the past.

 

On point. Want to highlight the last part and how it ties directly to Solo.

TLJ was built all around killing the past (even with it backing down from that stance at the last moment). And the follow-up movie is Solo - which is a movie about the past. And there really is a question why Star Wars fans (who flooded the early viewings of TLJ) didn't come out in droves to support Solo?

 

Meanwhile, Dory's OW could be over $150 million. My daughter, 7, will be seeing it twice this weekend. Once with a birthday party group and again with us on Sunday (yay Father's Day?). The excitement for this one is out of wack and the target audience is VERY wide. It will at least give Dory a run for its money if not pressing up past BatB and pushing toward RO's domestic and WW numbers probably over a billion dollars.

And to think that Disney has TWO animated films that could even top I2 next year!!!

 

Exactly. Calling something "rigorous analysis" doesn't make it so. Understand that I do, all things being equal, put more stock in the opinion of professional analysts than random forum posters- but all things are not always equal. Demonstrably flawed arguments or omissions are just that, no matter the source. To say otherwise is just an appeal to authority.

 

You mean Incredibles 2 may be over 150 million this weekend. I think that excitement for this film is off the charts and will most likely deliver. It does have some tough competition though as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will release the following week in the states.

 

Why does everything need to be a “boycott” all the time? I haven’t seen any of the Pitch Perfect movies. That doesn’t mean I’m boycotting them, it just means I’m not interested in them. I’m not going to see Deadpool 2, because I’m also not interested in it, but I will see New Mutants, which is part of the same universe as Deadpool, because I am interested in that. You can be uninterested in seeing a film and as a result choose not to see it. It doesn’t automatically need to become a BOYCOTT.

 

How are the toy/merchandise sales looking for Solo?

 

I haven't seen any numbers yet and with Solo not out a month yet it may be a while. Disney hides these numbers pretty well. But considering the trends I doubt its going to be good.

 

Purely anecdotal evidence but from what i see in EB Games i am often near them for work and love buying the stuff they liquidate. The Solo stuff is no longer prominent and there appears to be a lot of stock left at many of them. So i would say probably the same as most of the Star Wars merchandise these days it’s moving slowly

 

Yeah, I gotta say that the fan blaming, by both Lucasfilm and its critics, almost puts me off Disney Star Wars as much as TFA and TLJ do. Most companies try to grow their fanbase, but with Lucasfilm it feels lies they're trying to replace the Star Wars fanbase. There's a disdain for fans taken up by the media that I've never really seen before. Especially when you contrast it to how the MCU treats its fans.
BTW: Not talking about racists or misogynistic fans that don't like the movies or harrass the stars because there's more PoC or women.

 

I don't know how much TLJ has to do with Solo's B.O.
My brother is a causal fan. He didn't like TLJ very much but he's not against seeing Solo. He simply doesn't see it as a "must see in theaters right away" like IW and Deadpool (he went because one of his fave comic book characters is in it).

But TLJ doesn't make him look forward to RJ's trilogy and he doesn't care about Episode IX.

Its purely anecdotal and it doesn't mean everyone feels like my brother does, its just an example among many.
I know people who like TLJ and others who disliked it. But I had no convo with any of them about Solo.

 

I still think Solo BO failure is a combination of multiple factors, in which TLJ reception would be just one of many.

 

I don't see how anyone objective can not see that. I don't think anyone who is pointing to TLJ being a factor believes that its the only one.

 

We get it. You don't like Marvel movies. But yes, I think that they are better than the last four SW. In fact, being a Marvel fan, I can say that IW alone was better than the last four SW movies. 10 years of story building and no subversions. Marvel understands what fans want, and they bring in passionate people to oversee the projects, without much drama. And, no, I do not find them "unpersonal." Marvel creates relatable, likable characters that stay in-line with their established traits.