Solo Han Solo Movie Box office Thread

[writer0327]

There are things people don't like about MCU films too of course but I don't see any "huge amount of loud, annoyed, and disgruntled fans". I think MCU fans care too but many of the films pass without controversy because they aren't doing too many things that will upset fans, even after so many films (quite a lot more than Star Wars already). The only people I see regularly complain about the MCU are those who aren't fans of the MCU in general. If things like the Mandarin were done in every few films that might be more of an issue but they are few and far between. Unnecessary risks really when you can make great fan-pleasing films like IW with nearly all the characters thrown in with only a few complaints like not enough Hulk. Execution is king.

SW Fandom: 41 years
MCU Fandom: 10 years.

This is what happens when you make 8-10 films over the course of 40 years. Fans get too attached to the old stuff and hates everything about the new stuff that isn't like the old. MCU is so young, you barely have a chance to think, you just move along to the next film. I think this is the difference with the volume of the complaints. We don't have guys from 1977 who watched their first MCU film with their dad and grew up on it, and are now adults waiting for the second coming of films, and hating everything about the new films because its not as good as the stuff from 40 years ago.

Also what is unique about SW in comparison to the MCU is that this is primarily a "film franchise" whereas Marvel has crafted their characters and storylines and built their fandom through comics and cartoons. So there is no definitive "Spider-Man" and many actors can portray that character. But there is a definitive "Han Solo" and his name is Harrison Ford and he made Han Solo an ICON, and people are going to gripe if anyone else other than Harrison Ford portrays the character unless that person measures up to an iconic figure. Yeah, good luck with that.

So in short, MCU has a relatively short lifespan in comparison to SW, yet they have produced double the films on a consistent basis, so we don't get a chance to get all nostalgic about it. And we haven't had 30+ years to wait for new films while reminiscing over the greatness of the older films. This is one of the huge problems Lucasfilm has to wrestle with.

 

[Mask&Cape]

Having just got out of this, it was very medicore and Han wasn't even the most interesting part of his own movie. So the muted box office is now no longer a surprise. This film, while enjoyable enough had plenty of problems of its own.

The "muted box office" has nothing to do with what the film is like - be it fantastic or mediocre - because people are not going to see it therefore they don't have an opinion on it and the reviews have been very good.

The question is what is keeping them away.

 

[Mask&Cape]

Well I would say that the fanbacklash is basically because of TLJ and that's really what the divisions within the fanbase have been about.

You didn't have this backlash with TFA or RO. Its basically the last film which was an outlier in the franchise which caused so much disruption as far as fans go. There have always been minor gripes and issues , as all fanbases have, about all of the films among fans but they weren't enough to cause the split that you saw after TLJ.

KK won't be able to please everyone to be sure, but she can't kiss off a major part of the SW fanbase which is , like it or not, older and aging when the younger viewers prefer Marvel , Deadpool, and Wonder Woman.

Its a balancing act to be sure in trying to please old and new fans , but the narrative of "They don't need you anymore" to the core fanbase by the geek pundits after TLJ was nonsense.

They need both. They need the causal filmgoer who may not see every Sw film, in addition to the diehard sw fan who'll see the film 12 times, in addition to the child who has more of an affinity to Black Panther and Spiderman than Han Solo.

Do you really think fans are not going to Solo because they didn't like TLJ?

That doesn't really make any sense - have they gone sour on the whole franchise? That is crazy.

EDIT: I'm not saying you are wrong or that you are crazy yourself. I mean I can't understand the mindset of people if you are indeed correct. It just seems absurd to me.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Anyhow, back to the box office, OS numbers were a little better than projected at $68.2 million. So another bit of good news, relatively speaking.

http://deadline.com/2018/05/solo-a-...a-global-international-box-office-1202398686/

 

[Sarcastic Fan]

What I want to know is, if it is backlash to TLJ, or franchise fatigue... why didn't "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" bomb like this? Those were far worse.

 

[Boom]

Edit: Wrong thread

 

[Flint Marko]

I still say this is mostly the marketing’s fault. It kicked in too late because of the massive reshoots and none of it was good enough to seemingly justify the existence of a Han Solo prequel movie.

 

[writer0327]

Well I would say that the fanbacklash is basically because of TLJ and that's really what the divisions within the fanbase have been about.

You didn't have this backlash with TFA or RO. Its basically the last film which was an outlier in the franchise which caused so much disruption as far as fans go. There have always been minor gripes and issues , as all fanbases have, about all of the films among fans but they weren't enough to cause the split that you saw after TLJ.

KK won't be able to please everyone to be sure, but she can't kiss off a major part of the SW fanbase which is , like it or not, older and aging when the younger viewers prefer Marvel , Deadpool, and Wonder Woman.

Its a balancing act to be sure in trying to please old and new fans , but the narrative of "They don't need you anymore" to the core fanbase by the geek pundits after TLJ was nonsense.

They need both. They need the causal filmgoer who may not see every Sw film, in addition to the diehard sw fan who'll see the film 12 times, in addition to the child who has more of an affinity to Black Panther and Spiderman than Han Solo.

The backlash didn't exist with TFA and RO because they played it completely safe with those films. TLJ attempted to grow the franchise by using the existing characters to catapult SW into a new direction and the results were mixed: some loved it, others despised it. People don't like change, I get it, but one of the big problems when trying to further a franchise in a medium as expensive and highly scrutinized as cinema/film is the balance of pleasing the guys bankrolling the effort (to keep the money rolling in), the creative artists who are actually creating the product itself (to keep creative voices wanting to participate in your franchise), as well as honoring the fans with stories they want and keeping them engaged and excited for what's to come. Its a tricky proposition.

I agree they need both the older fans as well as the new fans, but the Fandom will fall to pieces if they only focus on the old and not branch out of the formulaic rut they are in.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I think people will seek out a truly quality movie that are interested no matter the release date, no matter the marketing, no matter the timing, no matter the reception. Now there are very few exceptions, but mostly if Disney thinks the solution is to release less Star Wars movies a year, they're not getting it. Content is king here. If anything, those other reasons are a result of lesser content. It's like citing a RT score. There is no evidence at all that has ever indicated those are true factors for a film's success and failure. They help, sure, as something like marketing is very necessary. But they're all a result of a quality product.

If these new Star Wars movies all felt totally different like Marvel, I wouldn't mind a couple per year, but it's getting stale now because these movies just haven't been great and there isn't much different identity among all of them.

 

[Iceman]

The backlash didn't exist with TFA and RO because they played it completely safe with those films. TLJ attempted to grow the franchise by using the existing characters to catapult SW into a new direction and the results were mixed: some loved it, others despised it. People don't like change, I get it, but one of the big problems when trying to further a franchise in a medium as expensive and highly scrutinized as cinema/film is the balance of pleasing the guys bankrolling the effort (to keep the money rolling in), the creative artists who are actually creating the product itself (to keep creative voices wanting to participate in your franchise), as well as honoring the fans with stories they want and keeping them engaged and excited for what's to come. Its a tricky proposition.

I agree they need both the older fans as well as the new fans, but the Fandom will fall to pieces if they only focus on the old and not branch out of the formulaic rut they are in.

Yes, it is tricky, and looks like they’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere over the last 2 films.

 

[Iceman]

Do you really think fans are not going to Solo because they didn't like TLJ?

That doesn't really make any sense - have they gone sour on the whole franchise? That is crazy.

EDIT: I'm not saying you are wrong or that you are crazy yourself. I mean I can't understand the mindset of people if you are indeed correct. It just seems absurd to me.

A lot of people on the Hype have said TLJ is a reason they didn’t rush out and see Solo but being sour on the future of the franchise isn’t the same as souring on the old films you already liked. Most franchises with standard sequels see this from a bunch of fans at some point.

 

[writer0327]

Yes, it is tricky, and looks like they’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere over the last 2 films.

I think the wrong turn was the frequency. SW is for the most part a "one-note" franchise with a simple formulaic storyline. Now look at how this used to be spaced out:

1977
1980
1983

16 year gap....then

1999
2002
2005

10 year gap...then

2015
2016
2017
2018

TFA was great, brought back everyone's love of Star Wars, but ever since that film, the complaints were already there. "It's just like ANH", "Rey is a Mary Sue", etc. Sure, people liked RO, but its complaint was the fanservice. The TLJ was controversial because it did something different and in many opinions disparaged the old. Now Solo is fun, but overall nothing special.

I wonder....how much better would Solo have done if it was the first SW film in 10 years?

 

[MadVillainy]

I still say this is mostly the marketing’s fault. It kicked in too late because of the massive reshoots and none of it was good enough to seemingly justify the existence of a Han Solo prequel movie.

My thoughts as well.

Big Star Wars fan. And nothing about this marketing impressed me enough to go see this ASAP. Rogue One was the same for me.

 

[Iceman]

I think the wrong turn was the frequency. SW is for the most part a "one-note" franchise with a simple formulaic storyline. Now look at how this used to be spaced out:

1977
1980
1983

16 year gap....then

1999
2002
2005

10 year gap...then

2015
2016
2017
2018

TFA was great, brought back everyone's love of Star Wars, but ever since that film, the complaints were already there. "It's just like ANH", "Rey is a Mary Sue", etc. Sure, people liked RO, but its complaint was the fanservice. The TLJ was controversial because it did something different and in many opinions disparaged the old. Now Solo is fun, but overall nothing special.

I wonder....how much better would Solo have done if it was the first SW film in 10 years?

That's true, sure, but also true of most franchises. IMO you can only start making films in a franchise more regularly than one every 2 years (and even that takes good skill and management to sustain) if you are providing a variety of material. The MCU is the only one doing that successfully at the moment although there are other properties that have the capacity for that if they get the right ambition, resources and brains behind them. Any that have a universe concept behind them like DC or a fantasy universe where you don't just make one line of good movies and have the material to make different types of films within that universe with different groups of characters, even if they are at least loosely connected. So I think there is a market for smaller SW films like this but people want variety outside of Episode films that hit the spot. The EU and Clone Wars series have showed there are plenty of ways they could go on this front but without ideas like those, I think there could be a drop off after Episode IX.

 

[Flemm]

The TLJ was controversial because it did something different and in many opinions disparaged the old.

In many ways, I felt that The Last Jedi was the most backward-looking of the new films. Like Kylo, it talks a big game about destroying the past, but it's actually obsessed with it. Maybe the best way to move on isn't to obsess over past failures, but just... move on?

It could be that Rogue One made a lot of money because of Vader and the other cameos at the end, but that wasn't why I liked the movie. I liked seeing a different corner of the Star Wars universe, and some new characters in the spotlight.

And I didn't feel like The Force Awakens was a big contradiction either. Too much reliance on familiar tropes, but good new characters and a lot of potential.

So... go with that? Move on?

It feels to me that they are making it much harder than it needs to be.

 

[Iceman]

SW Fandom: 41 years
MCU Fandom: 10 years.

This is what happens when you make 8-10 films over the course of 40 years. Fans get too attached to the old stuff and hates everything about the new stuff that isn't like the old. MCU is so young, you barely have a chance to think, you just move along to the next film. I think this is the difference with the volume of the complaints. We don't have guys from 1977 who watched their first MCU film with their dad and grew up on it, and are now adults waiting for the second coming of films, and hating everything about the new films because its not as good as the stuff from 40 years ago.

Also what is unique about SW in comparison to the MCU is that this is primarily a "film franchise" whereas Marvel has crafted their characters and storylines and built their fandom through comics and cartoons. So there is no definitive "Spider-Man" and many actors can portray that character. But there is a definitive "Han Solo" and his name is Harrison Ford and he made Han Solo an ICON, and people are going to gripe if anyone else other than Harrison Ford portrays the character unless that person measures up to an iconic figure. Yeah, good luck with that.

So in short, MCU has a relatively short lifespan in comparison to SW, yet they have produced double the films on a consistent basis, so we don't get a chance to get all nostalgic about it. And we haven't had 30+ years to wait for new films while reminiscing over the greatness of the older films. This is one of the huge problems Lucasfilm has to wrestle with.

All true. But at the same time it was all going fine after Rogue 1 with the majority of the GA and fans still interested. I think if TLJ had come out and given much better storylines for their new big 3, and done something better with Luke (either had the same scenes without him being a hologram and dying in the middle of battle or just having him survive till IX), then overall interest in the SW franchise would be as high as ever. That's not to say that that itself would mean Solo suddenly doing big numbers, but probably a couple of hundred million better worldwide.

I think they should get more ambitious with their spinoffs and cover totally new material first and then throw in a nostalgic prequel like this every 3rd spinoff or so. After Rogue One, going with Solo, Obi-Wan and Boba-Fett with nothing new in between is too much of a risk IMO as potential new viewers might have permanently given up by the time those are all done.

 

[Mask&Cape]

A lot of people on the Hype have said TLJ is a reason they didn’t rush out and see Solo but being sour on the future of the franchise isn’t the same as souring on the old films you already liked. Most franchises with standard sequels see this from a bunch of fans at some point.

That is the kind of thinking I don't understand.

Doesn't a fan want to give the thing they love another chance if they didn't like something in the past? And common sense says that the very concept of this film means it is like "old Star Wars" and not the "new kind" of TLJ.

Also, the Star Wars fans are not what makes these films successful. as vast as the fan community, it is the "regular" cinema goers that drive movies up to the billion dollar mark, just as it not the comic readers that make the MCU a success.

So why aren't the non-fans showing up to a movie about the character who is popular beyond the franchise itself?

 

[MadVillainy]

I think they should get more ambitious with their spinoffs and cover totally new material first and then throw in a nostalgic prequel like this every 3rd spinoff or so. After Rogue One, going with Solo, Obi-Wan and Boba-Fett with nothing new in between is too much of a risk IMO as potential new viewers might have permanently given up by the time those are all done.

I agree with this too

That is the kind of thinking I don't understand.

Doesn't a fan want to give the thing they love another chance if they didn't like something in the past? And common sense says that the very concept of this film means it is like "old Star Wars" and not the "new kind" of TLJ.

Also, the Star Wars fans are not what makes these films successful. as vast as the fan community, it is the "regular" cinema goers that drive movies up to the billion dollar mark, just as it not the comic readers that make the MCU a success.

So why aren't the non-fans showing up to a movie about the character who is popular beyond the franchise itself?

Because The marketing wasn't good and the non-fans love the popular character when played by the same actor for 40+ years. I think you'd have the same problem if James Bond or Superheroes had been played by the same actor to 40+ years. I know people always say this about a character but Ford IS Han Solo.

I think the same thing will happen if they ever reboot Indiana Jones. It's hard enough trying to overcome a very beloved adaptation of the character, but when the character has physically been/based off that actor for like 40 years? That's a very hard task

 

[Flint Marko]

That is the kind of thinking I don't understand.

Doesn't a fan want to give the thing they love another chance if they didn't like something in the past? And common sense says that the very concept of this film means it is like "old Star Wars" and not the "new kind" of TLJ.

Also, the Star Wars fans are not what makes these films successful. as vast as the fan community, it is the "regular" cinema goers that drive movies up to the billion dollar mark, just as it not the comic readers that make the MCU a success.

So why aren't the non-fans showing up to a movie about the character who is popular beyond the franchise itself?

That's why I'm blaming the marketing. From what I can tell, there's a healthy portion of people who had no idea this thing was even coming out.

I think it goes without saying this is all due to the reshoots. If they hadn't reshot 80% of the movie, the budget wouldn't have ballooned out of control rendering the profit margin far higher, they would have been able to market this earlier and more effectively, and we'd likely be seeing a bigger opening weekend.

I can't help but think they should have kept Lord and Miller on board and just try to make it work. I haven't seen the movie but from a business perspective that seems to have been the wrong call.

 

[Delwin]

And if audiences don't care that much for Star Wars, why did the last three films make over a billion?

They used to care. TFA was a clear example. RO made decent money (being a very specific movie). TLJ went below expectation significantly. Solo seem to follow the decline pattern. Of course being around IW and Deadpool does not help but still - the fanbase should have kept it going (this is the fanbase who creates most of the buzz in the social media).



On the comment about age of the fans: I am 40 years old, former diehard fan of SW. Now - I cannot find the words on praising IW. SW -meh...

 

[Mysteryman]

Episode 9 is still on track to make a billion.

 

[BatLobster]

Imo, the thing about modern Star Wars is that the concept has been rooted in nostalgia from the very beginning. For George he was making something that harkened back to the adventure serials, comic books and genre stuff he loved as a child, mixed in with various tried and true mythological archetypes, viewes through a very classic cinematic lens.

Fast forward 40 years and you have filmmakers like JJ and Rian for whom Star Wars itself was their childhood, their mythology, their classic cinema. Put in that context it becomes kind of unsurprising that new Star Wars films are going to have that meta layer and deal with its own history. It's borderline inescapable.

I think that transition into legitimately new territory is part of the journey, but it's a very tricky balance to walk. I don't think they're making it harder than they need honestly, I feel like pretty much anything decision they make will piss off a big chunk of fandom and that's just the reality. Tackling it head on felt like the more honest approach in terms of what the series' DNA is.

Meanwhile, I think Solo just didn't have the interest of people, flat out. It doesn't require reading a dozen thinkpieces to see what is plainly obvious there. The most important lesson Disney should take away here is: Star Wars in the title, a hit does not make. I'm glad they're having to confront that reality now because oversaturation has been a concern of mine from the moment the Disney acquisition was announced and they were immediately talking about doing 1 film a year before they had scripts for anything.

Yeah, yeah...quality is what matters, I get it. But imo the right quantity is important too. You don't want to exhaust people and abuse the good will that's out there. A Han Solo movie that nobody was asking for with a performance that people weren't feeling, a mere 6 months after the last film was a perfect way to do just that. TLJ being divisive didn't help, sure, but this had a ton to overcome without that.

Frankly, I still don't think Disney has much to worry about. They'll be printing money via Star Wars merch, theme parks, etc for decades to come. But if they want to avoid unnecessarily wasting money trying to fix films after they've been shot and failing publicly on the film side, I think they just need to be more selective about which projects they actually greenlight with the knowledge that even a Han Solo movie can be a bomb.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Oversaturation is only perceived when studios are making lesser content. For God's sake, we would be calling Marvel movies oversaturated if the two or three movies they released per year all were same-y. How is it we're nearly 20 movies in and we're not getting fatigued? Because Marvel knows how to change things up and they make great stuff for the most part. Marvel would not be getting by if they made movies like these past four SW films.

 

[jmc]

The audience score on RT went up again another percentage point. I don’t know what other proof people need to convince them there’s legitimacy to the TLJ audience score. The trolls can’t win the downvote battle, there’s just not enough of them.

 

[marcvader]

Shame this won’t make more. I thought it was pretty good.