Late last week, there were rumblings that the box office failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story – which is said to have taken a $50 million bath, at least – would result in the resignation of Lucasfilm president, Kathleen Kennedy. While we can neither confirm, nor deny the hearsay at this point in time, an accompanying rumour has now been debunked.
According to Deadline, the scuttlebutt regarding current Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, and his possible oversight of the Disney subsidiary following Kennedy’s departure has been “roundly denied.” In other words, the super producer’s staying put, for now at least, and we can confidently put this rumor to bed.
Circling back to that galaxy far, far away though, and having opened to an abysmal $84.7 million stateside, Solo: A Star Wars Story accumulated just $143 million worldwide when it debuted, which is less than half of the $290 million take acquired by Rogue One, and easily the lowest debut for a Star Wars film under the tenure of Disney. Therefore, it isn’t exactly surprising that Kennedy’s on the hot seat, especially when considering that, despite earning an impressive $1.3 billion globally, The Last Jedi somehow found itself with the lowest audience score (46%) on Rotten Tomatoes in the history of the franchise.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, it does make sense that Feige won’t be going anywhere. Seeing as his latest pet project, Avengers: Infinity War, is on the verge of making cinematic history once again, as it’s expected to hit the $2 billion mark by month’s end, he’s really got no reason to pack up and leave.
Not only that, but on the whole, the MCU is closing in on $17 billion grossed worldwide, further cementing the cinematic universe for a long tenure as the highest-grossing film franchise of all time. That being said, should we sense a great disturbance in the Force, on either front, we’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Published: Jun 11, 2018 09:07 pm