Refresh for latest…: Disney/Lucasfilms Solo: A Star Wars Story has grossed an estimated $65M in its international box office bow. The Millennium Falcon has been through some tough space battles before, but this is a very disappointing result for the film thats been decently received by critics and offers its share of fun summer popcorn action. The 3-day estimate is far below industry projections and the global launch totals $148.3M.
Contrary to most event pictures, Star Wars movies are not driven by offshore turnstiles. The Force Awakens, Rogue One and The Last Jedi each pulled in less than 55% of their money from overseas. Still, the numbers were seeing from this debut weekend on a movie that got a massive promotional push at the recent Cannes Film Festival are soft, and no deflector shield is going to change that.
Disneys worldwide distribution chief Dave Hollis, who is exiting the studio this week after 17 years, allowed that expectations were certainly higher on the movie and said Mouse execs will “spend a lot of time digging into every question in every market to get the answer” to why Solo so under-performed. “We came into the beginning of the year with this one of the most anticipated films. We gotta spend some time looking at the exits and get a better handle on all the questions.”
What do rivals think happened? Some cite fatigue mixed with too many spinoffs. One source says, “I think Disney got caught milking the Star Wars franchise a little too much. Everyone acknowledged the risk of releasing another movie five months after Jedi. They really should have pushed Solo to Christmas.” Recent SW titles have had essentially clear play through the holidays while Solo now finds himself in the summer blockbuster crunch.
Another exec believes that Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 sucked a lot of wind out of the markets. “It feels like general moviegoers are making a conscious choice to wait, probably until Jurassic World 2, to see their next movie.”
For Hollis, its too soon to jump to “fatigue” as a reason for Solos opening. “This is just the fourth movie and the first three did $4B combined. Im not sure its so much that people arent excited for additional stories.”
He also points to the MCU, noting, “Were in a world where were in the same conference rooms planning Marvel movies. We have a Thor and a Black Panther and an Infinity War coming out in November and February and May and each are massively successful. They each do well and people arent asking these questions.”
Taking a closer look at Solos performance, the UK came in tops with $10.3M, opening at No. 1. The standalone spinoff of the epic franchise was also No. 1 in the mature European markets as well as Australia and New Zealand. Thats in line with how SW movies tend to work overseas even if the grosses are lower than would have been anticipated. There was good weather and a big Champions League soccer match, which likely factored.
China, which was not expected to cozy up to Han and Chewie or fall for Landos charms, ended the 3-day with $10.1M. The Middle Kingdom score is not a huge surprise given the lack of traction the series has been able to muster over the most recent entries which each saw diminishing returns in the PROC. The country doesnt have the familiarity or nostalgia for the now 41-year old franchise. Ditto for some of the emerging markets in SE Asia which dont have the legend embedded.
The China problem on Star Wars, opines an exec, “may never get solved.” But, its worth noting that Disney is in the enviable position of having Marvel as a mega cash generator there while Coco just had a fantastic run (possibly ending the Middle Kingdom curse on Pixar) and its titles like Lion King are bound to make up for shortfalls. One distribution exec suggests Disney “can still release Star Wars movies in China, but they need to account for low grosses in the market. They need to start making these movies for a price. You cant spend $250M on Boba Fett which will skew very male and smaller than Rogue One and Solo.”
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