In only two weekends, Solo: A Star Wars Story has only made over 150 million dollars domestically according to Box Office Mojo. This past weekend saw it only make 28 million, which was a huge dip. More than likely, this will struggle to make 200 mil domestically. But why?
I like to chalk it up as oversaturation of the brand. There have been four films in the last three and a half years. To compare, there were three between 1977 and 83. There were three between 1999 and 2005. At least there wasn't a franchise fatigue for those two periods of time. Part of the reason why Force Awakens did well was because of three generations of people seeing it. You had the ones from the 70s and 80s, the ones from the 90s and 2000s, and the current ones of today. Part of me thinks Last Jedi did better than expected because of the last time of seeing Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.
The funny thing with Disney is that they were criticized for their constant sequels of their animated films, typically direct to video. That pales in comparison to what they have done with Star Wars and even the Marvel brand. While I believe Marvel films will start to decline at some point, they're not making a new Captain America or a new Thor every year. They're not that stupid, but at the same time, they are with the oversaturation. I hope with Solo, they weren't expecting to make a billion worldwide. If they were, then this was a big misfire that went way off target of expectations.
If there is a silver lining to it, Star Wars Episode IX will be out Christmas 2019. At the very least they can forget this bomb of a film. Disney has nothing to blame but themselves for this. Not every Star Wars project is going to be a guaranteed hit. I would expect IX to do very well next year, but after that, I don't know if any new projects will come up. Maybe a lesson can be learned from doing something like Solo.
No comments:
Post a Comment