Not much force with Solo this time
Great expectations fall short as plenty of Star Wars fans decide this is one spinoff they can afford to skip
In the largest disturbance yet in Disney’s otherwise lucrative reign over Star Wars, the Han Solo spinoff opened well below expectations with a franchise-low US$83.3 million ($120m) in ticket sales over the three-day weekend in North American theatres.
Disney estimated that Solo would gross US$101m over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, a figure below even the opening weekends of the much-derided prequels. Last week, forecasts ran as high as US$150m for the four-day haul of Overseas ticket sales were worse.
starring Alden Ehrenreich in the role made iconic by Harrison Ford, grossed US$65m internationally in its opening weekend, including a paltry US$10.1m in China.
“Of course we would have hoped for this to be a bit bigger,” said Dave Hollis, Disney’s distribution chief. “We’re encouraged by the response that people have had to the film. It got a good CinemaScore [A-minus]. The exits are very encouraging.”
in with a lot of baggage after the mid-production firing of directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were replaced by Ron Howard. With the rejigged production, the budget soared well past US$250m.
But the cause of the spinoff’s disappointing performance may have had as much to do with
fatigue ( exited theatres just last month) and the stiffer competition of a summer holiday weekend. While no major releases dared to open against Fox’s its release date up a week ahead of it.
The gambit may have hurt both. After debuting with US$125m last weekend, the R-rated Ryan Reynolds sequel dropped 66 per cent to second place with US$42.7m and an estimated US$53.5m four-day haul.
notched the biggest Memorial Day weekend opening in some years, but it also came on the heels of a pair of a summer-sized blockbusters — and Disney’s own
making for an unusually crowded May. added US$16.5m in its fifth weekend to bring its domestic total to US$621.7m and global sales to US$1.9b — both among the highest ever.
“It is a business that is built on momentum but also one where people probably are only able to get to theatres a certain number of weeks in a row,” said Hollis.
But there were also questions beyond the effect the calendar had on While reviews were generally positive (71 per cent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes), there was little about that made it a must-see.
Fans were sceptical of Ehrenreich and uncertain about the dismissal of Lord and Miller (the popular duo behind and
Unlike any release before, deemed — gasp — skippable.
As it arrived in theatres, Disney might have been wishing it had instead made a Lando Calrissian spinoff with the red-hot Donald Glover, the star of TV’s In the days ahead of release, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said a Lando movie was a possibility.
While the original films helped define the summer moviegoing experience, Disney released their last three films in December. What most hurt the “fatigue factor” of a May film following a December one, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore.
“It’s the compressed timeframe between the two films and the highly competitive nature of this marketplace. It is summer, after all,” said Dergarabedian.
“I think part of the allure of the
brand in the past has been the long wait.”
That time might also be valuable for Lucasfilm and Disney to find a way to counter the diminishing returns of its multibillion-dollar franchise.
To help propel internationally, Disney took it to Cannes, flooding the film festival’s red carpet with Storm Troopers.
also flopped in China, pulled from theatres after a week, and Rian Johnson’s movie — even though it grossed US$1.3b worldwide — showed relatively weak legs at the box office, while proving divisive among Star die-hards.
The magic around a may be fading. film with communities. As the world becomes swamped with information, we’ve seen a reduction in respect for the professions. There’s benefit from science opening up, but it carries some challenges. Things were done that way to allow the science community to seek the truth and report it without interference, so we need to find new ways to protect that. 11Has
Not one this size. We identified 35 key contributors from our team of more than 100 people and a number of them have said that recognition was the highlight of their career.
12If
A barista because I love being able to talk to people and understand their story and work out how we can connect with them. I’d like to see science increasingly engaging with people, understanding their story and finding ways to connect.
the
Prime Minister’s $500,000 Science Prize ever been awarded to a team before? you weren’t a scientist what would you be?