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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.
Is weak with this one.
In the long run it will make hundreds of millions in DVD sales and TV rights world wide. And that's not counting merchandise.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I'm not really sure where the negative vibes came from; I thought it was better than "The Last Jedi" and a lot better than "Infinity Wars".
Ron Howard did a credible job as director (you can see what was done before him).
I think it really comes down to "Jedi Fatigue" and a really stupid release date (against "Infinity Wars" and "Deadpool 2").
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Telling a completely new story in a great universe? Great idea.
Telling a derivative story in a great universe? Good idea.
Shooting a remake of a great movie? Decent idea.
Shooting a movie with an iconic character, defined by an iconic actor? Terrible idea.
The Star Trek remakes got away with it because the roles made the actors more than the actors made the roles (though they're still boring movies).
But Han Solo was cool because Harrison Ford is a top-end actor who absolutely nailed the character of Han Solo. A Han Solo movie without Harrison Ford is basically a movie of going "Boy, that character isn't nearly as interesting as I remember. And that guy still isn't Harrison Ford!"
It's not like there were a lack of stories to tell in the Star Wars universe.
I stole this Sig
So box office returns are below estimates. But we still have to go through the PPV, the DVD/BD disc releases, streaming service, TV, then there's all the merchandise/toys, etc. etc.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Marketing has little to nothing to do with it, but at least that's less stupid than the SW Fatigue shtick. Star Wars fans would have thrown money at the franchise forever without a second thought if they hadn't put social evangelists in charge and allowed them to burn it down.
--- Mercutio was right.
Yeah... once you factor in BluRay sales, video service streaming fees, TV broadcast rights, and branded products (Toys, T-Shirts, etc) they'll still make a small fortune on this movie.
It's just going to take more time to become profitable than usual.
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.
Go to youtube. There are quite literally hundreds if not thousands of videos that detailed what went wrong. For one thing, there was an active boycott of Solo (otherwise known as Soylo now among fans for the apparent reveal by the writer that Lando is a pansexual right before the release of the movie). This also probably killed the movie for countless red-state movie goers who were already incensed at the blatant SJW preaching that The Last Jedi seemed to do.
Really though, the stage was set for Solo's downfall with the poor movie (look at Rotten Tomato reviews) of The Last Jedi Returns. Sargon of Akkad has a video called "Gender Wars" that received a million views. How many of those did not buy a ticket to Solo? The Last Jedi is where the bridges were burned, and Solo is the consequence of that. Not that Solo is bad movie (though it has been described as mediocre at best).
It is clear that Kathleen Kennedy wanted to inject her politics heavily into The Last Jedi. In an interview she specifically said that she did not feel like she needed to cater to the fan base. The director Rian Johnson and writer John Kasden have been treating fans inhospitably in rather poor attempts to defend their story decisions.
Kathleen Kennedy made a Star Wars film that she and her fellow feminists wanted to see. Not what the traditional fan base was looking for (e.g. how the Luke Skywalker character was treated in The Last Jedi and the nonsensical Mary Sue aspects).
It appears there are not as many feminists interested in Star Wars as there was with the traditional demographic.
Shooting a movie with an iconic character, defined by an iconic actor? Terrible idea.
True Grit. Iconic character: Rooster Cogburn. Iconic actor: John Wayne in 1969. The 2010 remake had a good script and good actors. In particular Jeff Bridges as Cogburn. So like any other movie the script and the actors seem to be the key factors in success.
OK that's a remake not delving into an established character's past. Perhaps a more appropriate counterargument would involve a different Harrison Ford role, Indiana Jones. In Last Crusade we have River Phoenix playing a young Indiana Jones and revealing part of Jone's mysterious background. I thought those scenes worked well, again it may be all about the script and the actors. With a good script could River Phoenix have pulled off a respectable full length movie exploring Jone's youth? The Last Crusade scenes suggest that would be entire plausible.
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.
Don't know if you noticed but last jedi toys are still roting on the shelfs ...Walmart has tons toys r us has crap tons even youtube videos where 80% price cut they are still sitting ..gonna take a long time for 250 million+ loss
The movies are an advertisement for the merchandise. Reinvigorated sales of the Millennium Falcon merchandise is the real goal here. :-)
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.
The Force aWakens
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.
Heart, brain and wallet.
They are as shoes and thieves not murderers.
Prison maybe.
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.
Disney could view this as a moment to learn about franchise fatigue, how fans are getting sick of their injection of weird feminist politics into SW, how they need to focus on better writing and directing, etc.
Instead I guarantee you that Kathleen Kennedy will spin this as "People aren't interested in seeing movies with white male heroes anymore."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
gonna take a long time for 250 million+ loss
No worries, with current copyright laws, they have at least 95 years. And that's assuming Disney/Star Wars doesn't extend it again.
You have to appreciate the strange irony of calling a movie a failure if it's not profitable within a week of release yet having copyright laws that extend for many thousands of times longer than that.
We should change copyright laws to a max of 20 years or 5 years after profitability, whichever is shorter.
Star Wars and Star Trek need to stop.
It isn't that these new movies are bad or worse then before. But Star Wares and Star Trek were stories, characters and a fictional universe of a different era.
Prequels are especially tricky. Because we are applying our 40+ years of change of culture, and applying it to a story set 20+ years before the first movie.
The 2018 idea of the Rogue Anti-Hero is different then the 1978 Rogue Anti-Hero. Then trying to place this Anti-hero in a story before his first appearance. Just makes the feel of the story inconsistent.
These characters are fictional characters, made primary to entertain us. They do this by exaggerating traits that we expect to see. In Episode IV we didn't watch Han Solo deal with the contract and payment negotiation with Obewan. Or the days of just handing around shipping goods, playing chess with Chewy. As far as we see it. Han is always on the edge of disaster.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Know movie for fun.
Dont place SJW politics all over plot.
Trust in fans and what they liked to buy with past movies.
Dont add SJW emotions to movie that is to be fun for all.
Make sure script and speaking fits in with what fans expect given past history of movies.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
I'm smarter than you're.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
You sure know your Disney action figures.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I think they're both examples of retrofuturism. Past visions of the future.
A lot of things from Star Wars and old SciFi just don't make any sense anymore. We have to actively ignore that a robot or AI could do a job much better, safer, and with less trouble than having humans do the job. Like a gunner on a Star Destroyer. Or a interpreter droid. In the 70's, droids were boxy clunky things. In RogueOne, no one blinked when a bot caught a grenade mid-air and casually tossed it back with perfect timing. Or perfectly aimed without looking and shot a guy. Of course robots can do that, they've seen the boston dynamic videos. But that raises the question of why the fuck don't droids do everything? Especially when troopers can't aim. Space-opera sci-fi these days is clinging onto a bit of retrofuturism.
Dune at least had a good explanation for why that would happen; lingering taboos after universal devastation/enslavement.
But we could work with this:
The characters are AI programs on a drone carrier deep in enemy territory. But we don't tell the audience. They're kept in the dark as much as possible about the nature of the characters and we just throw a TON of equivalents and euphemism at them. The actors/characters are all metaphorical. They need a pilot to fly ships, they need a gunner to aim the cannon, they need a navigator to plot the course. They're all AI running on the ship's mainframe, but in the show they're actors doing the job. We get that old-timey space-opera feel of people going places and doing things out in space while keeping up with technological trends. (And ignoring a lot of the difficulties of keeping people alive in space).
Hrm, so we have:
Disney/Lucafilm are systematically trying to turn Star Wars in to something for SJW Women. They must not have done the market research to see that its white dudes who are most willing to shell out money to go see Star Wars in a theatre. The sad part is I don't think Lucas himself would've done any better, given the atrocities of 1 2 & 3. Perhaps there is no hope at all for the Star Wars we all grew up to love, and it's time to let it die.
The fans concerns and complaints after The Last Jedi was met with derision by Kennedy and her crew, who dismissed the long time fans in favor of what they believed was a brave new world of political activism, that even though set in a Universe far far away, and long long ago, this universe emulates far left Social Justice warrior identity politics of the US and GB today. Weird. So fans en masse neglected to go.
Soylo even had a few tricks up it's sleeves such as a droid with a sexual identity, social Justice warrior mindset, and with a terrible attitude. This character was so annoying that apparently audiences cheered when it was destroyed.
Then in a creepshow to end all creep shows, one of the Writers smugly bragged that one of the Characters, Lando was pansexual. https://www.usatoday.com/story...
Let that sink in a moment. A Star Wars Character that enjoys dipping his wick in little boys, little girls, dead people, Car exhausts, cows, sheeps, dogs, chickens.
Now I'm pretty liberal about this wick dipping business, but I'm old fashioned enough that I kinda think that humans should stick with other humans, and of an age where consent can be given. Just sayin'.
The problem you see, is that Social Justice Warriors are happy to complain about Start Wars - and everthing else it would appear - but if they even go to the movies, they don't do what has made LucasFilms and the Star Wars Franchise a mint in the past. And they don't buy the promotional items. Old School Star Wars fans, male and female, go to the movies often several times. They buy the promotional paraphernalia. They write the fanfics.
And what they do not want is 21st century far left identity politics. Star Wars is a couple hour escape from reality, not a couple hours of virtue signaling and destruction of the canon narrative. So they stayed away. All around the world.
Meanwhile,the people who made it flop apparently believe that the reason it flopped was because audiences are tired of White male characters. Apparently both racism and sexism is the new rule.
It's their money. But smart people trying to sell things should make things others want to buy. If Disney wants to make a movie called Queen of the Femniverse, shouwing white men being skewered and flayed alive, and women cheering and screaming in pleasure at the sight - well they can. It probably won't work. But its their money.
But it takes a willful act of stupidity to destroy a golden goose franchise in order to get rid of it's core audience.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.