Tomorrow night brings us the debut of Walt Disney's Solo: A Star Wars Story. The pre-release tracking for the Alden Ehrenreich/Emilia Clarke/Donald Glover/Woody Harrelson prequel has gone from a $160-$170 million Fri-Mon weekend (which would be just above the $153m debut of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End in 2007) to something closer to $150m, or maybe as "little" as $135m over the holiday. Tracking is not an exact science, but an opening weekend comparable to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (which was tracking at $90m but ended up with $77m last Memorial Day weekend) still gets Solo to a $136-$145m Fri-Mon weekend.
But what if... well, no one cares all that much about this Han Solo origin story?
Just under 36 hours until the first paid domestic showings, and the mood is... indifferent. The reviews were decent but not spectacular. Ron Howard, Jon Kasdan and Lawrence Kasdan have crafted a solid, old-school studio programmer crime caper that happens to be part of the Star Wars universe. Its lack of grandeur is its greatest strength as a movie but arguably its greatest weakness as a potential event.
I can't count the number of people, both inside and outside the film business or film nerd bubble, who are either not interested or not in a mad dash to see it as soon as possible. How well does a Star Wars movie perform when people aren't automatically psyched for a Star Wars movie?
I am not arguing that the Han Solo prequel flick is going to bomb or otherwise be some kind of financial disaster. At worst we may be looking at a situation where it makes a solid chunk-o-change ($600-$700 million worldwide) but still comes up a little short due to the excess expenses incurred by the director swap and resultant reshoots. It's expensive to reshoot large chunks of a feature film, although I cannot say how much of the 70% of the movie shot by Ron Howard comprised of reshoots.
Solo is a PG-13, family-friendly action-adventure movie with a strong cast, solid visuals and mostly decent reviews. And yes, Star Wars is one of the biggest brands in the world. Unless it's incredibly frontloaded or ends up earning less than, I dunno, X-Men: Apocalypse or Ant-Man, the worst-case scenario may be merely a minor disappointment. But, more than any of Walt Disney's recent Star Wars movies thus far, Solo: A Star Wars Story has little going for it outside of the mere fact that it's a Star Wars movie.
It's not an explicit sequel to Return of the Jedi, featuring the return of our original trilogy heroes (Luke, Han and Leia). It's not an explicit sequel to The Force Awakens, which offered more original trilogy reunions and further interactions with the newly-introduced heroes (Rey, Finn and Poe) and villains (Kylo Ren, General Hux and Captain Phasma). It's not even a somewhat unique war-torn New Hope prequel that is (sadly) timed up with the cultural/political zeitgeist. It's just another Star Wars movie.
To be fair, the first six major live-action Star Wars movies (not counting those Ewok flicks) were also "just" Star Wars movies, but they mostly (give-or-take the last two prequels) played in an environment where Star Wars movies were uncontested in terms of big-scale fantasy spectacle and blockbuster adventure. Even in 1994, nine years after Return of the Jedi, the bar was so high that something like Stargate became a buzzy hit purely by offering a comparatively B-level variation on Star Wars-level sci-fi thrills.
It wasn't until the late 1990's (Independence Day and The Matrix) that we started getting big movies that could approximate the scale and scope of those first three Star Wars movies. In 2018, Star Wars is a giant among other giants. It stands not alone at the top but alongside the MCU, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Jackson's Middle Earth fantasies, the Wizarding World of J.K. Rowling, the Fast and Furious franchise, DC Films and the Transformers films.
And this chapter specifically, existing more as a cynical cash-grab than as any kind of of-its-time artistic statement, exists in a world where A) there are more than a few big-scale franchises to choose from and B) folks no longer go to the movies just to go to the movies. If folks don't explicitly want to see Solo: A Star Wars Story this holiday weekend, they won't see it just because it's out.
Maybe the tea leaves are leading me astray and it'll make $150-$175 million domestic and $350m+ worldwide this weekend. But, yes, I am starting to get a "bad" feeling about this. Although, if I may state the obvious, even if Solo underperforms Disney still has the MCU and Pixar's Incredibles 2 to keep them well-fed this summer. Even if Solo underwhelms, it doesn't mean that Star Wars IX is in any peril or that the complicated reaction to The Last Jedi did any real damage to the brand.
Solo was always the least exciting and thus least promising of Disney's announced Star Wars movies. If things go relatively astray, it'll only mean that the side-eye offered beginning in July of 2015 was accurate all along. The first modern Star Wars movie not to feel like an event is also the first Star Wars movie that exists in a theatrical landscape where it doesn't have to be. There is a certain irony or appropriateness to that.
Two more things: First, At World's End actually earned $153 million over the Fri-Mon Memorial Day weekend launch, counting $13m in Thursday previews. I'm not sure why everyone just counts the $139m Fri-Mon figure, but I'm hoping it opens either under $139m or above $153m to avoid mixed signals. Second: Disney's Star Wars is currently batting 1.000 in the $1 billion+ department so at this point betting against it may be a fool's errand.
Bagikan Berita Ini
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