For most films, earning $103 million at the box office over Memorial Day weekend would be cause for celebration. But for a brand as closely associated with box office success as Star Wars, that’s a number that will send a shiver up the spines of Disney and Lucasfilm — who entered the weekend expecting to earn closer to $150 million. Solo: A Star Wars Story is having the rockiest opening in series history, making it the first true misstep for the revitalized space saga. For Disney, it’s a result that could cement one of its worst fears. After The Last Jedi was met with a mixed reception from fans and sinking merchandise sales, the unthinkable is now a reality: Solo’s performance puts the limits of Star Wars’ profitability into question.
The film’s performance is bound to cause some serious reflection in the House of Mouse, so here’s the three lessons that could reshape the future of the series.
You Can’t Escape Bad Buzz
When Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were fired from Solo last summer, it sent a supernova through social media — especially since it occurred less than a year from the film’s targeted release date. While far from the first Star Wars film to experience behind-the-scenes drama (Josh Trank was removed from an unannounced Star Wars Story in 2015, much of Rogue One was reshot without Gareth Edwards’ involvement), Solo never escaped the mythos of its production woes.
It would be easy for Disney to hope that all of this squabbling would stay in the trades, away from the eyes of peering customers. While the final product seems to be liked well enough (71 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an A- on Cinemascore), audiences couldn’t escape months of disastrous speculation. Production challenges are a part of life for any major film, but Solo may force Disney to reimagine how they are handled in the future.
The campaign to win the box office can start before a script exists. Lucasfilm has always been secretive of its films during production, and the proven power of bad PR may force them to become even more close-guarded with information. After all, you don’t have to deal with the blowback of firing a director if the public never knows they were involved in the first place.
Star Wars is a Winter Wonderland
For two generations, Star Wars was a name synonymous with a summer day well-spent at the movies. Both the original and prequel trilogies built their box office fortunes by debuting in May. When Disney took the reigns, it intended to release The Force Awakens in May — only to have Abrams request a delay into December to rework the script. The Last Jedi was intended to debut in the Spring of 2017 until it was hit with a six-month production delay. With Solo’s issues, it seemed history was destined to repeat itself — so much so that Twentieth Century Fox moved Deadpool 2 forward to May 18, clearly anticipating no competition from Solo over Memorial Day. But Ron Howard successfully finished his work on time, and Solo returned Star Wars back to its rightful place on the calendar.
Sticking to Memorial Day weekend at all costs is reflective of ancient Hollywood logic, and of Disney ignoring the historic success it saw twice in the past three months. Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War both saw record-high box office totals in February and April, respectively — months that aren’t associated with massive theater audiences. In Disney’s rush to keep Solo on track for ‘blockbuster season,’ it forgot that the whole year has become blockbuster season. While six more months in the oven may not have solved all of Solo’s problems, it would have provided additional distance from Lord and Miller’s high-profile firing.
Finally, it would have continued the trend Disney began with its past three Star Wars releases of becoming a holiday entertainment monopoly for this generation. Disney would be wise to keep it going.
New Characters are Key
Star Wars is one of the most beloved brands in pop culture, with characters who have become iconic archetypes for all of cinema. Han Solo has become the definitive point of comparison for puckish rogues, so it shocked nobody when Disney pushed for a Solo film to be one of the first Star Wars spinoffs. Cashing in on beloved characters is a key element of what makes this whole universe an ever-flowing cash cow. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi centered their marketing heavily on the return of Han, Leia and Luke. Even Rogue One dealt a great deal of hype by teasing the return of Darth Vader. Yet Solo’s performance suggests that what audiences want isn’t more of their old favorites but, rather, to see those old favorites from new perspectives.
Rey, Finn, BB-8, and Kylo Ren have become the faces of Star Wars for younger fans to claim as their own. While the stories still revolve around the old guard, these new characters offer a better sense of mystery to draw in audiences that aren’t slavish to the existing films. But Solo is so heavily rooted in callbacks, it’s hard to see why newcomers would care.
Of all the potential lessons to be learned from Solo, this may be the one with the most immediate and dramatic effect. Officially, Disney has only announced one Star Wars movie in the future — Episode IX, directed by JJ Abrams. But there’s a whole suite of films that exist in rumor, or only as development deals. A story following Obi-Wan Kenobi (set between Episodes III and IV) has been attached to Ewan McGregor and director Stephen Daldry for ages. Logan director and scribe James Mangold was recently rumored to be behind a Boba Fett film. D.B Weiss & Davis Benioff (Game of Thrones) and Rian Johnson (The Last Jedi) have both been picked to write and produce whole new trilogies in the universe, fully disconnected from the existing cannon.
These projects fall into two very distinct camps, and they seem to represent the two paths forward for Star Wars. Does Disney continue to mine the past for diminishing returns, or take bigger risks — showing us times longer ago, and farther away? With audiences turning down Solo, it appears the choice may have already been made for them.
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