As you surely know, Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s Alden Ehrenreich has made a deal with Lucasfilm to portray everyone’s favorite scruffy-looking nerf herder in at least two more movies. Whether he gets the chance to do so or not though depends mostly on how the film performs at the box office, and in that regard, things aren’t going very well right now.
We heard earlier today that the Anthology pic only managed to pull in $83.3 million on this side of the pond – not to mention it bombed in China, too – which is tremendously disappointing and way under expectations. It’s the first true flop for Lucasfilm and has no doubt thrown those sequel plans into question.
But if there’s one person who’s not letting the numbers get him down, it’s Ron Howard. Taking to Twitter earlier today, the director found a silver lining in the situation, saying that though it didn’t quite soar as high as the studio hoped, Solo was still a personal best for him in terms of openings.
Didn’t meet projections but amounts to a new personal best. check #SoloAStarWarsStory for balanced feedback & then C it on a big screen!
As for why exactly the pic did so poorly, well, when you combine the divisive reviews and production troubles, plus the fact that many people weren’t interested in seeing anyone else other than Harrison Ford portray the titular character in the first place, it isn’t exactly surprising that Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed at the box office.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that Disney is perilously close to devaluing the idea of a Star Wars event movie if they’re going to keep up their annual release schedule. Sure, the last couple have been great, but there’s a serious chance of audience fatigue if we hit the mid 2020s and we’ve had 7 or 8 movies in as many years. Even releasing Solo so hot on the heels of The Last Jedi feels a bit cheap. And judging by the box office numbers, that’s a sentiment that many share.
