In ‘Solo’ stumble, a crossroads for Disney’s ‘Star Wars’

NEW YORK » The reaches of the galaxy far, far away might not be quite as vast as previously thought.

In a box-office blip that echoed through the multiplexes, “Solo: A Star Wars Story” didn’t fare well over the Memorial Day weekend, amassing an estimated $103 million in ticket sales from Thursday night to Monday. Most movies dream of such openings, but the standard for “Star Wars” is different, as is the bottom line.

“Solo,” which switched directors mid-production, cost more than $250 million to make, and it was expected to debut with around $150 million. For the first time, the “Star Wars” juggernaut was humbled at the box office. The opening marked the worst debut in the franchise’s history and Disney’s stock slid 2.5 percent in trading Tuesday.

No one yet needs to run panicked through the streets yelling “Save the Wookies!” But for the first time since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion, the profit potential within George Lucas’ space saga no longer appears limitless.

Instead of opening up a new Han Solo trilogy, the disappointing arrival of “Solo” only intensified the questions bubbling around one of the movies’ biggest properties. Is there a filmmaker beside J.J. Abrams that can win over both die-hards and new fans? How slavish should subsequent sequels and spinoffs be to the originals? Is there anyone in China who cares a lick about lightsabers?

“I think they knew they had a problem a long time ago,” said Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations. “What, 75 percent of the directors are fired and don’t finish the film? You’ve got internal problems.”

Those problems came to a head on “Solo,” where filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were replaced during shooting by Ron Howard, who steered the film in a less irreverent comic direction that stayed closer to the script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan, the veteran “Star Wars” scribe of “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” Once envisioned as a western-style prequel romp, “Solo” became an existential battle over the tone of “Star Wars,” as Lucasfilm struggled to find a balance between old and new.

“If this is the business of movies now — and these are the ones that are actually in theaters — then it’s got to be this push and pull, constantly,” Kasdan said in an interview ahead of the film’s release. “There’s an added thing when you make a ‘Star Wars’ movie. You run into people in England — and in Marin County but mainly in England — who have been working on it off and on for 40 years. That’s like entering a cult. You have the same people who worked on Chewie’s costume in the original film, still working on it.”