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'Solo' Will Lose $50+ Million In First Defeat For Disney's 'Star Wars' Empire (hollywoodreporter.com)
Zorro shares a report from The Hollywood Reporter: To borrow one of Han Solo's lines from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, "That's not how the Force works!" It's an apt way to sum up the troubled performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. In one of the biggest box-office surprises in recent times, Solo is badly underperforming and will become the first of the Star Wars movies made by Disney and Lucasfilm to lose money. Wall Street analyst Barton Crockett says Solo will lose more than $50 million. Industry financing sources, however, say that figure could come in at $80 million or higher, although no one knows the exact terms of Disney's deals for home entertainment and television, among other ancillary revenues.
Nonsense! Solo will never be profitable because neither were most of the original trilogy.
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The costs:
Initial production budget was 250 mil. The movie was 80% done when the directors were fired and the new one re-shot most of the movie. So I'm adding 150 mil. The promotional budget for these movies is about the same as the production, so another 250 mil. Totaling 650 mil.
The revenue:
264 mil so far, not likely to go up by much. The second week's drop was quite heavy, so I expect 300 mil in total. Of which Disney's share is anyone's guess. Roughly half, 150 mil. Pathetic. Toy sales, TV rights, DVDs? Can't be much, judging by what The Last Jedi did. It basically broke Toys'R'Us! No one but ultra-geeks and collectors were exited about those toys. The regular fans, the general public, kids... are either "Meh" about it or actively hate Disney's Star Wars. The Last Jedi killed the golden goose.
The big picture:
Disney paid cool 4 billion for the franchise. A completely safe long-term investment in index funds will bring 5-10% annually. Therefore, Star Wars needs to bring 600 million to 1 billion every year to be on par. Disney needs The Force Awakens kind of film every year. So far, the investment has been a colossal failure. Disney can eat the loss because of the Marvel movies, theme parks, etc, but Star Wars will be a case study in failure for years to come.
The classic and arguably best Disney movies once represented Middle Class American values.
Take for example Pinocchio. From its Wikipedia:
"The film is... intended to relay the "middle-class virtues of deferred gratification, self-denial, thrift, and perseverance, naturalized as the experience of the most average American"
Now Disney via Star Wars represents... the values of Purple-haired social justice warrior feminists?
People want simple tales, that show hard work, perseverance and team work rewarded. That's why Avengers etc. are so popular.
I wouldn't place the blame squarely on Rian Johnson's shoulders. Part of the issue is that J.J. Abrams was given the first film and he's never been able to write a story from start to finish which you really need to do if you're making a trilogy. Look at something like Babylon 5 where J. Michael Straczynski had the overall story arc planned out in advance and was able to create something much more narratively satisfying because there was a point and purpose behind the different characters and events that occurred earlier in the series.
For Star Wars, there were no character arcs planned and in usual J.J. Abrams fashion he introduced plenty of unresolved and mysterious plot threads that he had no solid plans for resolving while essentially remaking Episode IV. Maybe that works great for something like Lost where you can jerk the audience around for 6 seasons, but for a Star Wars trilogy you need to know where the story is headed.
I suppose you could pass the buck to Disney who could have done a much better job of managing the Star Wars property. Why they didn't have an overall script or plan in place is beyond me. If you look at the Marvel cinematic universe they seem to have that much more planned out and I think that's why it's doing so well.
When Rogue One came out, I was skeptical that a spinoff movie could be any good, so I didn't see it at first. I was impressed by it, so figured Solo might be a safer bet than I'd ordinarily expect. Now with the fan reaction, I'm not so sure. Perhaps the reason Rogue One succeeded where Solo did not is that the former stars all-new characters (with some classic characters in ancillary roles) whereas Solo puts classic characters front and center, played by new actors. I.e. don't fuck with viewers' nostalgia. The Boba Fett movie will probably crash and burn, similarly.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
That's not really true. It is *TOTALLY* doable. In fact, the prequels (as badly-written as they were) provide a perfect counterargument.
Ewan McGregor seemed like he was channeling the deceased spirit of Sir Alec Guinness. He *was* Obi-wan. I'm amazed at how good his delivery was given the crap direction that Lucas provided (as seen how otherwise awesome actors like Natalie Portman were rendered like, well, petrified statues with hot grits).
If they'd searched long and hard enough they certainly could have found someone who could *be* Han Solo.
At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, Alec Guinness himself made a pretty good Hitler, and Bruno Ganz was flat out iconic. Nobody complains that they're not as good at being Hitler as the real Hitler.
It wasn't a terrible movie
Being not terrible is not a reason to be a box office it. It is a $150 million mediocre movie. The characters aren't that engaging. The plot isn't that engaging. Han comes off as a gullible doofus. L3 was just pathetic especially the whole "death" scene. And, Lando crying over L3 like it was his lover? Really? The explanation of the Kessel run was pretty lame too, especially with the "carbon bergs the size of planets".
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
My own opinion is that "Solo" is flopping because people have finally realized the series is never going to get any better.
Some background: I saw the original "Star Wars" in college. It was a jaw-dropping movie, (unless you're old enough to remember what science fiction / fantasy movies were like before the release of SW, you really can't appreciate how amazing an experience it was to see it in the theater), and "The Empire Strikes Back" was even better. But "Return of the Jedi" was a let down, in large part because Lucas had full creative control and couldn't resist inserting "cutesy" characters like Ewoks into the story, and adding a ridiculously sappy ending.
Still, two out of three wasn't bad. And then came episodes 1 through 3, which conclusively proved that Lucas knew how to build a universe, but had no clue how to write a good story. So now it's two out of six, but there was still hope after Lucas sold the franchise to Disney. Maybe (I thought), having some new people in charge might revitalize the SW universe.
"The Force Awakens" was a reasonable reboot. J.J. Abrams isn't a great director, but he's a competent one, and he avoided a lot of pitfalls by recycling the plot of the original movie. "Rogue One" was a competent one-shot, but nothing special. Now's it four out of eight good films if you're generous.
Then came "The Last Jedi", and the painful realization that really, really bad would be the new normal for Disney, and that future "Star Wars" movies would be micro-managed by Disney execs and designed to sell overpriced merchandise. And that, for me, was the end of it. When I walked out the "The Last Jedi", I knew I wouldn't be paying to see another Star Wars movie in the theater again. Most "Star Wars" movies have ranged from mediocre to bad, and it is never going to change. Disney will never let go. It'll just be bad formula movies from now on.
I am indifferent to "Solo", which by all accounts is another painfully mediocre film. I might watch it when it hits cable, but I have about as much desire to see another "Star Wars" movie in the theater as I do to see another "Mission Impossible" or "Transformers" movie, i.e. none at all. And given how "Solo" is doing, I suspect I have a lot of company.
If that was the goal, they did it wrong.
Luke faced torture and certain death to save his father, who he barely knew, from the darkside. And here we have that same Luke about to murder his own nephew, whom he has known his entire life, in his sleep! For just starting to fall to the dark side.
Character motivation MATTERS when telling a good story. There interest here wasn't to show us how characters react in this drama, it was to take a widely-loved hero and turn him into a coward that just shrugs his shoulders and abandons his friends and family during their time of greatest need!
So, it makes zero sense that Luke would behave this way, so the story is dumb. And it doesn't stop there. Poe, formerly an elite and devoted hero of the resistance, is now a mutineer that just wants to blow everything up, and is directly responsible for getting the entire resistance wiped out. Fin is selfish and obsessed.
All our male heroes are having their characters destroyed, so their female counterparts can show their superiority, in each case. As if the bad plot wasn't bad enough, being beaten over the head with this man-shaming is just icing on the cake.
Fuck star wars.
I'm not sure where you're getting this stuff about the Jedi from.
"...but they were actually pretty awful all round"
They were? They seem to be universally loved by "good characters" in the universe. Let's see why you say the are "pretty awful"
"They considered themselves superior and claimed ownership of the Force, used it to manipulate people without a second thought"
Sure seems like they would have been running the Republic's government if they thought they were both superior and were happy to "manipulate people without a second though". But no, instead of pursuing power in the Republic they acted as servants of it.
"...and didn't seem to care at all about injustices like slavery."
Slavery was illegal in the Republic ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki... ) so while it did exist in a few backwaters like Tatooine, this does not mean that the Jedi didn't care about it any more than the Republic didn't. They were a relatively small order patrolling the bulk of the galaxy and by their own admission, couldnt get to everything. In fact, "When the Old Republic outlawed slavery, the Jedi set about to free those held..." (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Order).
"Luke tried to emulate them but made the same mistakes, resulting in Kylo Ren."
Specifically, what mistakes were made? The only one I know of was pulling his light saber out for a moment when he sensed the Dark side's influence on Ren.
Don't get me wrong, what you're throwing out here is certainly an interesting narrative, it just doesn't fit the facts.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
..."Solo" ...the problem is that The Last Jedi was the worst Star Wars movie ever (yes, worse than Episode I) and that pissed people off. They will watch Episode IX since they wan't to know how the story will end, but they won't bother with an "anthology" movie outside of the main storyline since they don't feel like they are missing anything important.
You may be correct, but there could be another factor... Solo is unlike the rest of the Star Wars movies because it's not about magical force-wielding Jedi/Sith. Solo's characters are more "average" people than most Star Wars movies. Rogue One is the closest to Solo in terms of Force-wielding characters and Jedi vs Sith plot lines, but Rogue One characters clearly had latent/untrained Force powers, and they fought against chief evil Sith Lord Vader. Anyway, the lack Jedi/Sith and Force powers might be hard for the masses to get into or at least hard to get into as summer action blockbuster sort of movie.
Infinity wars was down a few million a day. It did not explain Solo theaters with 22 tickets sold.
Solo suffered from the pansexual comment. Audience demographics showed families attendance was down 80%. What parent wants to discuss pansexuality with their 12 year old. Awkward. yea... I know... it really wasn't in the movie.. it was a forced error on the part of the writer who gave a bad off the cuff response to a question.
Solo suffered from fan anger over TLJ. There's no way around it. Many of the peple the angriest were the ones who typically see films opening night and then repeatedly afterwards. I've seen A:IW 5 times and Deadpool II, 3 times. (BTW: I'm hearing good things about "Upgrade" a little independent Sci Fi film and I'm going to see it before it vanishes from theaters).
I was angry because TLJ humiliated and ruined Jake Skywalker (as Mark Hamill called him). And generally because the film humiliated males (Poe, Hux, Kylo, even Snoke) without any corresponding humiliation scenes for females.
TLJ was independently a really dumb film that repeatedly broke my suspension of disbelief so often that I had none left for the last half hour. I was just debating.. "do I leave and wait in the lobby or do I just sit out the last bit to see how this shit show ends?". And I went into TLJ in a very positive mood. It had a lot of my good will and had burned it all by the 45 minute mark. By the time I walked out, I'd decided not to see or buy any star wars material based on TLJ canon.
So.. I'm going to Avengers and the Solo trailer came up (1st trailer) and I literally felt sick at my stomach from leftover anger at TLJ.
EU is my canon. To say it's not canon is like Disney buy the rights to shakespeare and saying Hamlet is no longer canon. It was canon for 40 years. Some dumb soulless corporation isn't going to tell me what canon is.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You basically just regurgitated the premise of "The Last Jedi" - and newsflash: people hated that movie.
Luke only became "disillusioned with the Jedi" and "made the same mistakes" because that was what Riann Johnson put into the story, and that idea sucked.
I wanted to see Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order. Not failing to do so, but achieving that and it being a worthwhile goal. It's OK to have a hopeful movie and not try to make everything emo and shades of grey. Is the world like that? No, of course not, but that's why I'm watching a fantasy movie where people fight with glowing laser swords.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain