Well, so much for this film having legs: 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' takes a hard fall, but still tops box office with $29.3M



I have a feeling that this means bad things for Star Wars.

I think they'll wind down many projects...lets see if we will ever see the Johnson trilogy or GoT Producer movies...

After all the hate from its fans..."why would you do anymore when everybody tells you what terrible person you are"

I never said anything.

Vitriol is so much easier than fair consideration.

I dont get it

I like and agree with your post. But here's what I meant:

I did not participate in bashing these new films. I'm happy that if we get fewer films as a result of fan dissatisfaction, it won't be on my conscience.

It take less effort to harshly bash than to assess or criticize intelligently. That's why there are far fewer CoGros and E_CHU_TA!s than your garden-variety haters in nearly every sphere of life.

Well I certainly didnt mean you with my post. But the minority is loud and annoying. I'm sure everybody here has seen Posts at official SW Social Media channels which were harsh, mean, full of hate and nasty language. Thats what the poeple of SW are getting from its fans or better: thats the Group which has a very loud public face, so why would LFL do many many more? If you get hated for every release you make (and try Catering to exactly those fans which bash you for anything) you give up eventually.

I remember when in 2013 KK was at Celebration Europe in Essen Germany and was telling about their plans for TFA. When she mentioned Humor (which she said that Lucas told her was essential to the Franchise) she allready got some negative crowd reactions. She tried to calm them by telling that they knew what the fans wanted.

TFA in the end was a product to Catering a certain crowd of fans, pleasing them by giving them what they asked for: X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Falcon, Stormtroopers, Good vs. Evil in a very clear way and so on, the praise of practical effects (when in fact they just as much CGI as every other Blockbuster these days). In the end they were hated for playing to save by many, even the crowd they tried to please.

When I look at the history of LFL since 2013 with all the effort of trying to please and calm certain crowds they failed to reach their Goal. If at least the critics would be constructive and creativ I'd say: good for them, so they might new ideas. The majority of it is full of hate and bad language though. I dont feel well that those People reprisent me in the eyes of the SW Folk.

If I would be treated the way they are treated since at least TLJ I'd swipe my hands clean and say: I'm done.

This!

I don't know if Solo bombing necessarily means bad things for Star Wars. It's a movie nobody wanted for a variety of reasons, was under-marketed and, quite frankly, isn't particularly good. It's at best a serviceable summer movie but not one that people who liked it are going to be in a rush to recommend, especially considering the competition. There are too many May/June/July movies competing for dollars. What Solo proves is that the brand isn't big enough to overcome problems that plague other studios. Pixar has had its stinkers and so has Marvel. People forget that outside of Iron Man, and until the Avengers, most of phase 1 was pretty meh and got a mixed reaction from fans. I kept the faith because I was always bought into the plan.

With Star Wars, I don't know what the hell the plan is. I don't think they know what the plan is, and that's a very DC-like situation to be in. We know how that ends up. For example, I do think that a wiser creative leader would have ensured that there was a stronger and more consistent narrative driving the sequel trilogy. And that person would have killed Solo before the first word was put to paper.

What does this mean for the Johnson trilogy or the B and W films? I really don't know. It shouldn't change anything on that front, really. They're different things. That said, people are largely reactionary, and Solo's failure will absolutely make Kathy think twice about Fett or the rumoured Obi-wan film. That kind of sucks to me because I actually think seeing Ewan again as Kenobi in a true western-style film would be interesting.

Anyway, we'll see.

Since the purchase, Disney's plan has been a) hire J.J. for the ST, b) hire "younger" studio directors for the Saga movies, and c) crank out the movies as quickly as possible so the studio can make back the $4 billion it gave to Lucas.

J.J. passed on Episode VIII & IX (initially), and the two Saga films went wonky during production. Until now, it's seems that Disney adapted well to the curve balls thrown at their shaky plan. Whatever their quality, TFA, Rogue One, and TLJ generated a lot of money.

Now that there's a hiccup, there will be soul searching. Where things go depend on Disney's ability to interpret Solo's performance faults and come-up with a plan to mitigate such perceived problems in the future.

- Does Disney interpret Solo as a "fan service" movie, which failed because of its limited audience base? If so, does this mean that Disney will go the route of general audience crowd pleasers, which almost completely ignore continuity to the prior films and source materials? (Why worry about pleasing the fan base if they are fickle and unreliable?)

- Or, does Disney see the movie as an anomaly stemming from bad timing and/or audience souring over TLJ's subversive attitude? If so, does this mean that new Star Wars movies get released during non-competitive winter weekends with tried less-ambitious story lines?

Hiring Johnson, Benioff, and Weiss for blocks of movies at least showed some measure of planning on Disney's part. But, that's not enough to convince me that Disney has a better plan for the future than it's had in the past.

Overall, I don't think that Solo's disappointing revenue is attributable to any one reason over another. But, I don't have faith that Disney will be able to interpret the truth behind the numbers. Solo's poor performance makes things more confusing for Disney, and they were already pretty confused on how to handle the Star Wars franchise. Not good.

Kenobi will still happen because that’s the one that fans WANT to see, whereas Boba Fett doesn’t and will likely be cancelled instead of Kenobi

Well, they have 18 months till Episode IX to get their you know what together. Hopefully, they will.

Benioff and Weiss’s stuff may happen. Rian Johnson’s stuff though, that’s in question.

Watch any interview with Kathy Kennedy up to TLJ's release, and she is clearly ALL IN on Rian Johnson as a director and storyteller for the franchise. She gushed over working with him. And this is someone who's worked with Spielberg on some of his best-done and most-beloved projects over decades. Were they to pull back a trilogy from Johnson at this point, it would look far worse for Kennedy and LFL than anyone else. It might send a message that the person and the company might not be good to sign up with for future directors. Lord/Miller, Trevorrow, Rogue One's original composer...key people who didn't start or finish productions.

I have to think - at minimum - Kennedy has to do a little reflecting about her decision-making and the overall franchise's direction. I don't mean this to be crying wolf because Solo isn't performing at the box office. But, with 18 months until Episode 9's release, maybe it's a good time to question "Should we do anything different going forward?"

I can't wrap my head around why Solo isn't performing well. Was it released too closely to Infinity War? Was it released too close to TLJ? May 25, in the OT era, was the Wednesday before Memorial Day. This year, it was the Friday before Memorial Day. Would a May 23 release date have been more effective? The Disney SW era has taken over December. Would a December 2018 release date have been better? I think fans would have been understanding of the delay, given the late-in-the-game director change. Is it really a Disney-era boycott spurred on by dissatisfied people who saw TLJ? I'd like to ask anyone who did see TLJ, but skipped out on Solo - and there are a lot of them - why? What kept you away from the cinema for, IMO, the most purely fun film since ANH.

I for one am neither surprised, nor racking my brain regarding the lack of attendance to Solo.

I saw Solo once, TLJ twice.
I thought Solo was far superior to TLJ.

I won't see Solo again because I am disappointed with the state of Lucasfilm and the emphasis and motivations of the story group - who are not filmmakers, they are content creators pushing social agendas - two completely different things.

Now we hear TLJ director taking time to figure out why Star Wars works so well and what makes it so magical for his own trilogy - that's not a comforting thought for me, it's a red flag.
He should have known why it works before he ever got his hands on VIII. Sorry, I don't feel for him or his challenge, I expect more.
When I watched the Making of documentary for TLJ on the Blu-ray I felt like RJ wanted me to feel sorry for him and his daunting task.
Every doc for the prequels was inspiring.
Remember "Within a Minute" - The Making of Episode III.


I do think a great deal of this is backlash from the whole fanbase, and I don't mean left or right fanbases.
Star Wars is deep on a personal/metaphysical level, it's not Star Trek/save the whales/etc.
This is why it transcended boundaries/politics/social issues.
Anakin personifies this. His interior struggle mirrors the exterior struggle/conflict in the galaxy - which is in a state of civil war.
Hence, what happens in society, first starts in man by his choices.
This is universal, and part of the human experience.
it's also fun too and never took itself too seriously, just like you have to with life.
We are so fortunate to have a franchise that transcends like this, yet Disney literally took a success story and twisted it into an IP in search of an issue or issues to address - how can you fuck something up like that?


As for Kennedy:

Kennedy is tied to Lucas/Spielberg, not Disney, she at least knows how to protect the property even if she doesn't get the property.
She did produce Indiana Jones.
And yes, she did produce for Spielberg - that's a dream job for any producer as he's one of, if not the best filmmaker in the world, much different from running a franchise.

I also know someone working in Disney who deals with a lot of behind the scenes information. Back in January we discussed TLJ and Solo.
He relayed that Disney had little confidence in the film and it was being bumped to May instead of the regular Dec. 18 release to soften the blow.
People/the press can blame Marvel movies and the Summer schedule all they want. Internal rumblings were not good and Disney did not have faith in the picture.

That being said, I am beginning to wonder if Disney is intentionally politicking/playing a long game to get Kennedy out and put in one of their own - which would be a death nail to the franchise because they cannot even handle the muppets.

I just don't see this being Kennedy's fault. Why didn't IJ, BTTF, WOTW, etc, have such strong statements on social issues? She produced them? It's a fact Kennedy and Spielberg are democrats. Why now?

Maybe it's not Kennedy, Maybe it's Bob Iger.

Isn't he the one who scrapped Lucas' sequel trilogy outlines because "we wanna make something for the fans"?

I'm beginning to believe he is using SW as a megaphone to subtly promote a political agenda or even a future run in politics/U.S. Presidency... just sayin?

And if so, it ain't workin.


However,

Rebels was better than the entire sequel trilogy, and the series finale blew all the Disney era films away.

I would also say TCW is better than anything in the Disney era, period. Every time my daughter watches an episode I am blown away by the quality top to bottom.

Remember, Filoni was schooled directly by Lucas. I think he should be CCO, not CEO as it would hinder his time in creative. I for one have hopes they would make Rick Macullum or even Joe Johnston CEO.

Ahsoka is loved, Padme was loved, Leia was loved, Lando was loved, none of this equality/gender stuff was an issue, because people just loved the characters.

To quote Lucas: "Look, just tell the Story".

I have not seen Solo yet and I don't plan on seeing it anytime soon. This will be the first SW film I've had no real desire to go see at the theater which is a shame. I just had no interest in this film since its announcement, when the trailer was released it did not excite me in the least. It has nothing to do with being tired of SW or being upset over the previous installment. I had a lot of issues with TLJ too but that has nothing to do with why I have zero interest in Solo. Not all films can be a home run unfortunately. You get over it and move on. As has been mentioned by others, I don't feel this was a film that needed to be made. Not once growing up with the original films did I ever wonder about what Han's past was. What we needed to know about him was given in those films and I didn't feel like I needed to see how he won the Falcon or see him do the Kessel run or see how he met Chewie. I've talked to a lot of SW friends some casual, some die-hard and I would ask them if they were looking forward to Solo and every one of their reactions was basically the same, "eh I'll probably see it but I'm not too excited about." I will watch the film eventually of course but I'm content to wait until it hits home video or even cable. I think this film's performance has perhaps signaled that the masses are not necessarily going to accept any and all SW films just because it has the Star Wars name attached to it. Just 2 cents from a person who has not seen Solo.

Well said. Also, another reason Disney didn’t push back Solo to December was because of Mary Poppins Returns. I agree with everything you said about Filoni.

Disney could not delay it to December because of Mary Poppins Returns, the sequel to 1964’s Mary Poppins coming out in December.

All interesting posts. I quite liked Solo, but I hink the reason the film has suffered, relatively speaking, at the box office is threefold.
1) A lack of logic/strategy at Lucasfilm. Who in Lucasfilm believed that by treating the OT characters so poorly in the ST, it would in turn, make new fans (brought in by the ST) eager to see origin stories of Han et al?
2) Fallout from The Last Jedi. Such a polarising film, yet whilst many critics seemed to like it, general audience reaction seemed very mixed.
3) Over saturation of Star Wars in the market place, made worse by a lack of engaging new characters and iconography. New Star Wars feels tired already.

I agree with your first two points, but if your third point is referencing the "Star Wars fatigue" narrative that the media has been running with, I disagree fully.

Up to this point, fan demand for Star Wars is (was) insatiable. I simply can't buy that a franchise that has existed for 40 years, with multiple movies, spin-offs, products etc. would suddenly collapse from fatigue in the span of 3 years.

First live-action Star Wars release I won't be seeing more than once in theaters.

I saw it opening night but didn't feel too energized to write anything about the experience. My considerable beef with the film started right from the get-go with the extensive blue text at the front end of the film. It's like the Kasdans were trying to wedge in an opening scroll without an actual opening scroll. Smacked of lazy screenwriting in losing contest to that most classic of screenwriting adages, "Show don't tell." But not even in that kind of harkening-back, yellow journalism style that is synonymous with Star Wars.

And I really didn't like Lando's robot trivializing class struggle. I get that Disney is playing on a perception of inclusivity and social responsibility but to someone with an activist past (PAST!), it was so grating!

Beyond those two issues, the film just felt very by-the-numbers. Made up of retreads from stronger films outside of the Star Wars franchise. I've seen better Mexican stand-offs, train heists, deceptive trades, fated romances, harrowing chases, etc. elsewhere.