Solo: A Star Wars Story has a troubled history after the firing of Phil Lord and Chris Miller led to Ron Howard being brought on to take charge of the spinoff. Lucasfilm allowed negative reports about the production to continue popping up online without ever countering them and our first look at the movie came via some leaked LEGO packaging. The trailer, meanwhile, debuted very late (three months ago).
Just how much all of that has hurt Solo is hard to say but initial opening weekend estimates of $130 million - $150 million have now dropped to $105 million - $110 million for the four day weekend.
The projected three-day weekend haul is only $80 million - $90 million, a pretty disappointing result for a Star Wars movie revolving around a popular character like Han Solo. Initially, these spinoffs were billed as having lower budgets and not needing to earn a huge amount but all those reshoots have helped make this one of the most expensive Star Wars movies ever and that's bound to hurt Lucasfilm.
Whereas Rogue One: A Star Wars Story took $29 million in 2016 during Thursday night screenings, Solo ended up doing $14.1 million for an estimated $35 million Friday (half of Rogue One's $71 million). Overseas, the news isn't much better as it's flopped in China - like every other Star Wars movie - and made an underwhelming $11.4 million from its first 43 markets on Wednesday and Thursday.
Are moviegoers bored with Star Wars or was releasing it so soon after The Last Jedi - with pretty much no marketing campaign - where the studio went wrong? For now, we'll just have to wait and see.
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