SOLO: A Spoiler Story (contains spoilers)

[sperry]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

What the others have said. On top of that, Solo has a problem in that it doesn't have a clear run to pick up the slack: The Incredibles 2 and Jurassic World 2 are in theatres in a couple of weeks and that will likely finish the movie off. Between all of that, Solo will be lucky to reach $700 million worldwide, which is what it needs to make a worthwhile profit and probably guarantee a sequel. At this rate it may struggle to reach $500 million and break even.

The plus point is that Disney probably launched the film in an unflattering timeslot deliberately, so they can assess how a non-main Star Wars movie can do in that slot. They know now that it's probably for the best to keep future releases to December. They'll also likely know now to keep the budget down on the non-Saga films as well. I also suspect the movie will pick up a lot in media and streaming sales, especially because the word of mouth has been generally positive.

 

 

Infinity War will cross $2 billion in the next day or so, only the fourth movie in history to do so, and it'll likely overtake The Force Awakens a few days after that. Titanic is also in reach, but Avatar isn't. So Infinity War could very well end up as the second-highest grossing movie of all time. I think its perfectly fine.

 

It's not going to sniff $700 million. $500 million is about as good as they can hope at this point, and that's not going to be breakeven for a film that cost $300 million to produce before factoring in promotion. It's basically playing like a lowend MCU film. That's not a good sign, considering the Han character is much more widely known and popular than the low end MCU characters.

 

I don't think the release date can explain the poor performance, either. Plenty of films do well over Memorial day weekend. I think following closely on the heels of Avengers and DP2 certainly has something to do with it, but that would explain a slight dip (and likely already calculated in studio forecasts). And the foreign performance is just a plain old disaster. They are going to have to figure out why this one didn't play with foreign audiences at all.

 

Frankly, I'm kind of surprised it performed so poorly. It wasn't great, but it was definitely solid, which in the past has been all that's needed to kill it at the box office for something with such popular IP. We'll have to see if it has any legs and can salvage a respectable finish.

[Cas Stark]

Almost all of the coverage of the movie was negative-for months and months.... I am sure that played a role, and that kind of bad buzz is rarely overcome, also maybe I am not plugged in, but it didn't feel this had the same level of marketing behind it as typical SW fare.

[sperry]

Not a good few days for Disney. Solo is going to underperform by hundreds of millions of dollars, and they had to cancel Roseanne's hit show because she tweeted some racist crap.

[red snow]

10 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

Better yet, "How did Solo perform in the Chinese market?"

The recent star war films have all been flops over there so it's one metric it probably won't be heavily scrutinized over.

The run of films at the moment must have damaged them especially when they only had this weekend without having to contend with another big release. Maybe the film will soak up sold out list world tickets where kids can't see Deadpool instead?

Sticking it in May makes it harder to compare with the other films and it will be the only released within 6 months if the previous one.

A lot of people were burned by last jedi and I think a lot if people will have been wary about the reviews given the universal praise of last jedi by critics and the divisive reaction from cinema goers. Waiting a while let's word of mouth get around and this may be a plus for the film. I think after last jedi even episode IX would have fallen below predictions so soon after last jedi.

I mentioned in another thread I was holding off a week precisely because I wanted Disney to look at the opening weekend and pause for thought on the films they make. They'll still get my money in a week's time. I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this so it may lessen the drop off next week. 

In the UK many cinemas ditched the "cheap Monday" offer due to the bank holiday. Not sure if Monday was included in the weekend sales but I can imagine it results in more people seeing it the following Monday.

Lastly the promotion for this film was more like a fast spurt across the finish line. There wasn't even a trailer with the last Jedi. While it was probably a production issue that still struck me as odd.

Ron Howard is happy though saying it's still the best weekend box office he ever had.

And as many others have said, Disney us probably more concerned if Lego and other merchandise from the film is underperforming.

Disney didn't take any if Spiderman homecomings box office but had full merchandise rights. That shows how important that is in terms of revenue.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

16 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Almost all of the coverage of the movie was negative-for months and months.... I am sure that played a role, and that kind of bad buzz is rarely overcome, also maybe I am not plugged in, but it didn't feel this had the same level of marketing behind it as typical SW fare.

The Super Bowl ad was good, but they should have had a teaser trailer in theaters at Christmas. There are guys at work who I know are bonafide SW fans who had little or no awareness of this film.

After the first full trailer was released, I joked to one guy, literally wearing a Millennium Falcon T-shirt, "Hey, your shirt is broken.  The Falcon doesn't look like that anymore." He had no idea what I was talking about. Literally did not know a Solo film was about to be released.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

9 minutes ago, sperry said:

Not a good few days for Disney. Solo is going to underperform by hundreds of millions of dollars, and they had to cancel Roseanne's hit show because she tweeted some racist crap.

Actually, firing her makes them look good.

Queue conspiracy monger freak out in 3...2...1... 

[sperry]

Just now, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Actually, firing her makes them look good.

Queue conspiracy monger freak out in 3...2...1... 

It may make them look good, but they just lost a hit television program, which have been hard to come by for the networks in recent years.

[Corvinus85]

Well, anybody who went to see Infinity War, and that's a lot of people, would have most likely seen a Solo trailer ahead of it. So even if people were unaware of it until IW, there was no excuse afterwards. I think Solo had a fairly strong marketing push in the month preceding it, with the standard release of clips and TV spots that all the recent SW movies had.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

7 minutes ago, sperry said:

It may make them look good, but they just lost a hit television program, which have been hard to come by for the networks in recent years.

I'm sure it will haunt their dreams as they their head rest on pillows stuffed with Black Panther and Infinity War moneys.  The Mouse will weather this.

And they lost before they fired her.  The sequence of events wasn't

1. Racist tweet

2. Fired by Disney.

It was :

1. Racist tweet.

2. Wanda Sykes says: "I'm off".

3. Phone lines jammed by angry advertisers saying: "We're off". 

4. Fired.

Anyway, SOLO: A star wars story was an action packed thrill ride.

[Rockroi]

58 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Tell the 8 year old Solo won't get a sequel because it didn't make enough money.  He might care about that.

Ah... How Would the Eight-Year-Old Feel Entitled to Something They Did Not Know Existed Thirty Seconds ago? 

Seriously, be happy with what you have; not in the idea that you will lose out on what you never had a right to in the first place.  

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

13 minutes ago, Rockroi said:

Ah... How Would the Eight-Year-Old Feel Entitled to Something They Did Not Know Existed Thirty Seconds ago?  

Um, because he's eight.

13 minutes ago, Rockroi said:

Seriously, be happy with what you have; not in the idea that you will lose out on what you never had a right to in the first place.  

Seriously, who said anything about "rights"?  The correct concept is "wants". I'm entitled to care about my "wants". I am therefore entitled to have an opinion.

This isn't Rocket Surgery

[dbunting]

2 hours ago, Rockroi said:

A friend of mine explained to me what he thinks of Solo and its opening:

Imagine, if you can, that your 43-year old self could talk to your 8-year old self about Star Wars.  I am 43 now and I was 8 when Jedi opened.  What would that discussion be like?  What would you talk about.  I imagine it would go something like this:   

43-Year Old Me: You just wait! I know you barely remember Star Wars and you love Empire and now that you saw Jedi you think that's it; the movies are over.  BUT JUST WAIT!  IN 15 years they will release prequels and then... after a bit they will release a new Star Wars movie EVERY YEAR! !! You will see FOUR Star Wars movies in just over three years!  And I just saw one for Han Solo!  It explains how he meets Chewbacca and gets the Falcon; it has chase scenes and action and drama and its fun and its funny!  ITs all about smugglers and fighting and its great!  Chewbacca is in it; Lando and new characters!  You will love this movie!

8 Year Old Me may say many things to that.  But you know what the 8-year old me will almost certainly NOT say?  "Okay, but how did Solo perform in the International Market?"  

Love your finale. Absolutely nails it for me. I went to watch this today for the second time and I liked it again. F@ck what everyone else wants me to think and $$$.. I liked it

[Werthead]

Quote

 

As I mentioned earlier, box office talk can get really tedious and stupid, but it does become relevant if you are a fan and you want to see the story continue.  Low viewership is the reason we only got 2 seasons of ROME and not the originally planned 5 seasons.  It's the reason The Wire ended when it did and why Warner Brothers released a mediocre Justice League with their "course correction."

 

Rome was more screwed over by the BBC pulling out: the viewership and media sales actually made HBO a ton of profit and they later said they regretted cancelling it.

The Wire's low audience figures were a problem, but ironically after Season 5 came out the DVD sales went through the roof and HBO did have a brief discussion with Simon about continuing it, but he wasn't interested because they'd fired McNulty, killed Omar and given it the perfect final montage. Plus he said the two season-long stories he wanted to do, police corruption and the Latino immigrant community, could only come between Seasons 3 and 4, not any later, and that ship had long since sailed.

Quote

 

Well, anybody who went to see Infinity War, and that's a lot of people, would have most likely seen a Solo trailer ahead of it. So even if people were unaware of it until IW, there was no excuse afterwards. I think Solo had a fairly strong marketing push in the month preceding it, with the standard release of clips and TV spots that all the recent SW movies had.

 

Nope. The marketing for Solo was absolutely much, much lower-key than The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi had multiple trailers released over a period of almost a year, it had near-constant marketing involving the castmembers and of course it had the awareness generated by Carrie Fisher's passing.

Solo, on the other hand, was getting massively criticised as recently as March for the lack of any kind of long-term marketing or awareness for the film. Friends of mine who are Star Wars fans have also shown tremendous apathy for it (including my housemate who went to midnight showings for all three of the other new-era films and is a massive Donald Glover fan), either not going or only going once they heard good stuff for it.

I think the main problems are 1) the low level of marketing, 2) the perception that we don't need a Han Solo origin film, 3) over-saturation of the market, 4) the busy time of year and 5) The Last Jedi was really not that great, even for people who really enjoyed The Force Awakens.

ETA: Is it just me seeing this, or are my replies all on a white background everyone else's are in grey? This has been happening ever since the board revamp, it's seriously distracting.

[felice]

3 hours ago, Rockroi said:

Now here he is again in Solo, trying to matter.  And he does not matter.  The way the whole franchise handled this character is lazy and this reveal is also lazy.  I know Star Wars wants to tie everything together but a better way is the think up better villains.

I can't actually think of a better option than Maul for filling this role in the film. He provides audience-understandable motivation for Qi'ra to abandon Han and take over Dryden's role instead - she can't just kill Dryden and run away, because then she'd have a vengeful Sith Lord after her. Vader or the Emperor could also function as an instantly recognisable threat, but it wouldn't seem right for them to be personally running one of numerous rival crime syndicates. And they couldn't introduce a new villain for this role and effectively build them up over the course of the film, because the whole point of the role is to justify Qi'ra's surprise apparent betrayal (but actually more like sacrificing herself to save Han), and emphasizing the threat of the big boss before then would undercut it. You could argue that the whole film should be structured differently to remove the need for the Maul role, of course.

[red snow]

You're the Gandalf the white to our grey

[felice]

20 minutes ago, Werthead said:

ETA: Is it just me seeing this, or are my replies all on a white background everyone else's are in grey? This has been happening ever since the board revamp, it's seriously distracting.

No, it's not just you seeing it.

[Rockroi]

2 minutes ago, felice said:

You could argue that the whole film should be structured differently to remove the need for the Maul role, of course.

No, you just don't have to lower the film to ham-fisting a familiar face.  Qi'ra can just fly by Han at the end and we are left to wonder.  You could even keep in most of the "reveal" scene, just that its a voice on the other end; no need to use this as an opportunity to shoe-horn in Maul.  

I think its more interesting that Qi'ra wants to be in charge of a criminal enterprise than she is being forced into it by Maul.  I actually like the idea that she may want to build something for herself.  And this was the way to do it.  

Instead?  Oh, gosh, she better be the leader of the criminal enterprise, otherwise she would have to ... run from it?  Yeah, we knew that anyway.  Crimson Dawn was thought to be a really big bunch of bad asses; I can infer that she has to run from it.  Instead its lead by ... a loser.  

Either way, I thought it was forced, lazy and uninspired.  

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

13 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Rome...

The Wire'...

Solo...

Maybe you are typing your responses in the quote box.  It all looks like one massive quote to me.

I had heard that about ROME. They had to rewrite season two to finish the series at a logical endpoint (The ascension of Augustus) because they found out half way through production it was the last season.  Season two was originally supposed to end with Brutus' death.

It was only later that they saw home video sales were enough to justify the series continuation. A shame.

I was one of those people who discovered The Wire late.  At the time I was already a committed Sopranos and Oz viewer and I just wasn't interested in what I perceived as just another crime drama.  Now, I think The Wire might be the best thing HBO has ever done.

Solo: Firing Lord and Miller absolutely did not help things.  Once stories of production problems like that get into the media, it sets up a climate where people expect the thing to fail.  It's not impossible to get out from under that, it's just really difficult.  All the malarkey about the casting didn't help either.  Fanboys are seriously the worst for this.  I'm old enough to remember people shitting themselves over Michael Keaton being cast as Batman, and that was pre-internet. 

[Darth Richard II]

Can you imagine what it would have been like if social media had been this huge when Episide 1 came out?

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Maybe you are typing your responses in the quote box.  It all looks like one massive quote to me.

I had heard that about ROME. They had to rewrite season two to finish the series at a logical endpoint (The ascension of Augustus) because they found out half way through production it was the last season.  Season two was originally supposed to end with Brutus' death.

It was only later that they saw home video sales were enough to justify the series continuation. A shame.

I was one of those people who discovered The Wire late.  At the time I was already a committed Sopranos and Oz viewer and I just wasn't interested in what I perceived as just another crime drama.  Now, I think The Wire might be the best thing HBO has ever done.

Solo: Firing Lord and Miller absolutely did not help things.  Once stories of production problems like that get into the media, it sets up a climate where people expect the thing to fail.  It's not impossible to get out from under that, it's just really difficult.  All the malarkey about the casting didn't help either.  Fanboys are seriously the worst for this.  I'm old enough to remember people shitting themselves over Michael Keaton being cast as Batman, and that was pre-internet. 

Hmm. When I reply to one person's quote it's fine, when I multi-quote it causes the problem. Weird.