It’s been a nearly week since the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story and its box-office returns don’t seem to match up to Star Wars standards. Although over $170 million at the box-office (as of now) is a hefty sum, it was far below expectations as it was expected to at least match the film’s budget of $250 million in its opening weekend. Disney distribution chief, Dave Hollis provided some thought on the matter.
Hollis suggests that the disappointing returns attributed to the abundance of blockbusters released around the time. This included Deadpool 2 and Disney’s own Avengers: Infinity War. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he states:
“There’s a question of frequency, and how many times people will go to the movies. Is this too much and too soon for a third time in a five-week period?”
Hollis words indicate that the returns may have been affected by the aforementioned films which were all the rage when they were released, especially Infinity War which is the fastest film in history to reach a worldwide gross of $1 billion. This feat is followed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World, the latter of which will see its sequel released in June.
Solo is the only film among the recent Star Wars films to be released during the blockbuster season as The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Last Jedi were released in December. It’s probably a wiser move to stick to the December date due to minimal competition and massive success garnered by the aforementioned films. Disney would have to take a lot into consideration as Episode XI draws closer. Hollis further added:
“We have a lot of work to do in trying to understand this. We are all over it and will spend a lot of time digging into why things happened the way they did in various markets. We have a year and a half before Episode IX comes out.”
Blockbuster fatigue may be another factor that attributed to this or maybe some audiences are just not on board with the Star Wars hype anymore following some negative responses to The Last Jedi. Perhaps the tumultuous production process of Solo that was widely covered in the media caused fans to skip on this one. The reviews for Solo were underwhelming as well and some fans were already deeming the film ‘unnecessary’ way before it was released. Maybe no one really wants to watch a Han Solo film.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
