Things aren’t looking good for Solo: A Star Wars Story. The prequel movie was hit with bad press throughout its production, due to the much-discussed directorial upheaval it went through, but things seemed to be looking up when it was met with warm reviews upon its release. The box office hasn’t been so kind to it, though, with the film massively underperforming. And, to make matters worse, it may be the first Star Wars movie to fail to break even.
Solo has dropped a precipitous 77.2% from one Friday to the next in its first week at the box office. After an opening weekend that scraped by with $84.4 million – good for any other movie but Star Wars – it’s now on pace to bring in just $28 million this weekend. That’s less than half what box office analysts were expecting and suggests that the pic is likely to rack up about $148 million for its ten-day total. To demonstrate just how disappointing that is, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story grossed $155 million on its opening weekend alone.
What this means is that Solo will most likely fail to break even. Due to Ron Howard having to come in and reshoot much of what original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller did, the budget ballooned to $250 million, which is even more than The Force Awakens. From what we understand, at this point, Solo would have to earn $500 million in order to break even and unfortunately, Forbes suggests that the best it can hope for right now is $210-$215 million domestically, with an international total even lower than that.
As you’d expect, this will make it the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise to date. We already know that Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s failings have caused Lucasfilm and Disney to re-evaluate their release schedule, but it’s possible that even more of their plans might change now if the Han Solo prequel doesn’t even turn a profit for them.
