Following
reports that
Solo: A Star Wars Story is tracking towards a $170 million-plus 4-day opening weekend, Fandango has revealed that presales for the upcoming film have actually doubled those for
Black Panther in the first 24 hours of their availability.
According to the online ticketing company,
Solo: A Star Wars Story had the second-best first day of presales of the year, behind only
Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel's blockbuster team-up not only
doubled the numbers of Black Panther as well, but also outpaced the last seven entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe combined (
Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, and
Black Panther). Obviously, we shouldn't expect those kind of record-breaking numbers for
Solo, but it still must make the House of Mouse (and the company's investors) happy knowing the film - which suffered from a rocky production (and
change of directors) - is not only
tracking signicantly higher than
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($155M opening), but also one of Marvel's top-performing films in
Black Panther.
Now,
Black Panther did go on to rake in a whopping
$1.3 billion at the global box office ($689.9M domestic), so it will be interesting to see how
Solo: A Star Wars Story compares in the long haul.
Black Panther has some very impressive legs thanks to great word of mouth. Although hype of
Solo has picked up with the increased marketing, there's still a good number of
Star Wars fans still on the fence about it. After all, it's not easy seeing someone new step into the boots of the galaxy's most iconic smuggler, but perhaps Alden Ehrenreich will surprise us all. If not, there's always Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, who definitely looks to be one of the movie's brightest spots.
It's far too early to predict how
Solo: A Star Wars Story will stack up with Marvel's heaviest hitters in the long haul, but for at least opening weekend, things are looking bright for Disney and Lucasfilm.
Solo: A Star Wars Story flies into theaters May 25.