OFFICIAL NEWS A Lasting Record Of Solo's Financial Performance.

Are you on drugs? Being serious here... because...

No... it didn't flop. It made $938 million, was the second highest of the series domestically, and led to two more followups that grossed Disney another $1.84 billion dollars(pretty sure they didn't cost that much to make!). Boy.. whatta flop!

Maybe you were thinking of Dead Men Tell No Tales? Even there it nearly cleared $800 million worldwide.

Neither film is the John Carter-esque Kennedy Dive that Solo represents after Rainy's Billion Dollar Boondoggle (TLJ) poisoned that well.

Seriously... They may end up doing a lot of things... people aren't going to the beach en masse for Memorial Day. This isn't Coney Island and the 1930's old man.

Simple Math sufficed. $938 million with two followups that made $1.84 billion != flop.

Your Memorial Day Ribs are more fun if they come along with actual truth. As it stands, hoo boy you were easy to take down. At World's End was never a Solo-level flop financially, or anywhere close.

Just a really bad one for Solo. Nobody is suggesting that Memorial day is a $2 billion generator. But for 41 years it has been an excellent weekend to open a film on. That won't change because Solo went Piffers up.

I also just love people doubling and tripling down on TLJ not being the cause. I hope Disney does too. I really can't imagine they'd stay the course and completely wreck the IP... but whatever... at this point it might be fun for them to do it, just for the lolz.

 

lol cool story kid. Just remember to wear the sunscreen the next time you go for your weekly resupply of Doritos and mt dew.

 

Solo by days (Memorial Day U.S. Holiday Weekend 2018):
Thursday: $14,100,000 (estimate) (Rogue One -51.83%)
Friday: $21,275,125 (number is minus Thursday estimate) (RO -49.46%)
Saturday: $24,601,896 (RO -46.87%)
Sunday: $24,443,468 (RO -35.13%) (softer Sunday drop due to Monday holiday)
Monday: $18,596,323 (RO +5.68%) (Monday official holiday)

 

SWNN polled their users which is a nice cross section of Star Wars fans...

The boycott doesn't seem to be a large amount of Star Wars fans who read this site.

However, there's a lot of Star Wars fans who weren't particularly interested in Solo.


These numbers aren't scientific, but this is a poll that's difficult to brigade. It's worth noting.

 

Its worth noting... 1352 votes on the first and 2759 votes on the second... HMM.

 

The polls are one day apart which accounts for the vote difference.

 

JJ brought back Star Trek... He'll bring 'em back for EPIX

 

Wait... wasn't the brigade mocking him as "Jar Jar Abrams," 6 months ago?

 

Solo by days (Memorial Day U.S. Holiday Weekend 2018):
Thursday: $14,100,000 (estimate) (Rogue One -51.83%)
Friday: $21,275,125 (number is minus Thursday estimate) (RO -49.46%)
Saturday: $24,601,896 (RO -46.87%)
Sunday: $24,443,468 (RO -35.13%) (softer Sunday drop due to Monday holiday)
Monday: $18,596,323 (RO +5.68%) (Monday official holiday)
Tuesday: $7,295,767 (RO -58.51%)

 

Wow, that was a low opening weekend... Back in the TLJ Box Office thread I said I expected Solo to have a worse multiplier than TLJ, I may be wrong on that... with that opening of $84.4 million, if Solo finishes with $253 million domestic that would be good enough to give it a 3x multiplier. Can it get there? I dunno... It's going to get good bumps on the weekends as Fans keep going back to see it again and maybe.. maybe the General Audience starts to show up (that's a big maybe though)

Some opinions...

1) I have seen some say it has good word of mouth?

From where? I'm not seeing good word of mouth. My wife who is as General Audience as it's going to get did not like the movie at all, both my daughters, which one is a fan, the other is not, did not like the movie at all... Anecdotal? Yes, but, outside of the fandom itself, I have yet to come across someone that actually liked the movie that has seen it (work, friends, family). It's a small sample size though, because not many have gone to see it.

Most i've talked too match up with my wife's thoughts on it... it's confusing with all the groups, the story, and the name dropping got annoying as she felt right away that she was missing out on details of the movie when names were dropped, or someone said something and I (and others in the audience) would laugh and she had no clue why. She was highly aggravated with that as she felt it affected her enjoyment of the movie.

of note...Disney is pushing hard with it's commercials now, it's really really trying hard to get people to go. They are running the commercials (on TV) for SOLO, that I never saw run for TLJ, TFA, or even Rogue One on TV. The one's where they do the whole "critic's are raving for SOLO" or "Solo is #1 in the world".





Disney didn't have to spend the extra money to run those commercials for the past movies because the other movies were raking in the cash, so spending the advertising revenue on those movies didn't make sense... but for SOLO, I have noticed these commercials quite a bit on TV (not just the StarWars.com facebook page). I could be wrong, and I might be more tuned into hearing these commercials for this movie because of the Box Office situation, but, I cannot ever remember seeing these commercials for the other movies on TV like I have for SOLO. (I know they made one for TLJ, but only ever saw it on their facebook page, not on TV)

2) All the production problems kept people away?

It did? Guess what, General Audiences don't follow movies close enough to know that SOLO had issues. I think fans need to stop putting themselves into some bubble that everyone in the General Audience cares enough about Star Wars to follow who is or isn't directing the movie or who got fired and replaced. General Audiences are general because they don't follow that crap like fans do. Now that's not saying that there are some in the GA that have heard and decided to stay away, but, I would be willing to bet it's not as major a factor as some fans are trying to make it. It comes across as fans making excuses.

I think the major reason people stayed away, or the general audience stayed away, is because they just didn't care enough about a SOLO movie to cram into what they thought would be packed and sold out theaters (or so they thought they would be).

This is why I said earlier that SOLO's multiplier might actually beat TLJ's because of such a low opening, it makes it easier for the appearance of good legs. General Audiences might actually still show up enough to artificially push that multiplier up.

3) Disney knew this was going to happen?

They did? That's why Disney and everyone else in the business kept dropping their projections in the days/hours ahead of the release of the movie? Sorry, everything points to this movie was expected to do a lot better than it this.

How this movie performs over the next few weeks will be interesting.... The OW was definitely a stumbling block.... I personally think it's too soon to call it a bomb... but, I think the bomb bay doors are open...

EDIT: Out of curiosity I went back on the Offical Star Wars facebook page to look for other commercials (for TLJ) similar to the ones I posted here for SOLO. The Official Facebook page posted one for TLJ on December 22nd, so a full 7 days after the opening of the movie... So far I have counted three for SOLO, with the earliest being posted on the 28th, 3 days after official release... They are pushing hard....

Double Edit: Oh and the Darth Maul thing completely confused the hell out of my wife! She thought he was dead, so when she saw him, she immediately assumed that SOLO took place before TPM, and right away was confused because that would have made Han older than Anakin/vader... So I had to explain that after the movie, this isn't a movie for the GA...

 

Everyone I know who has seen the film has loved it. Even the person I know who didn't like TLJ likes it. Anecdotal evidence is worthless. The word of mouth score for Solo is higher than it was for Jumanji and lower that it was for TLJ.

Negative press hurts. Solo had tons of it and it probably helped contribute to the negative reviews.

What are some good example of huge box office hits with RT critic score lower than 73%? Jurassic World is the best example I can think of and that was simply a product of nostalgia. Solo simply wasn't good enough for general audiences and for critics. Star Wars fans are a huge group, but even they can't save a movie when audiences have other choices.

 

Link to that information please...

If you are going to quote CinemaScore, just remember that they only score opening night, and that's when you are going to have a skewed representation of people, especially for Star Wars when fans are waaaaay more likely to get scored than just a normal person that isn't biased. Or are people prepared to acknowledge Attack Of the Clones A- on Cinemascore? Cause I would love it if they did! How about TPM's A-? I would love if people would acknowledge that too...

Where is your proof of that? Throwing probably in there is not going to save you from providing proof to why you feel that way.

The part I brought up was about the production problems and how some are using that as an excuse for the OW. It should be clear that general audiences did not show up for OW of Solo. If you think a major contributing factor is that because of the firing of the Directors, which is what everyone means by "production problems" than you are one of the people I am talking about that live in this bubble that what happens behind the scenes of a Star Wars movie is just as important to John or Jane Doe as it is to you. Sorry, but the average person is not in tune with what is happening with the production of the movie.

If you feel that the public problems of the directors is causing negative reviews by critics, well than you should running just a vehement a crusade to denounce the critics scores on RT as you have been on the audience scores.

LMAO.. I love how you add the little qualifier of "huge" in order to try and limit any response... The truth is that it happens all the time! There are a lot of movies that critics hate, that audiences love and do extremely well at the box office..

after a quick google search....

Meet the Fockers = $279 million Domestic ($404 million by today's numbers) with a 39% Critics score at RT.
POTC: At World's End = $309.4 million ($412 million) with a 50% critics
Shrek the Third = $322 million ($430 million) with a 41% critics score
There are others like Suicide Squad, Passion of the Christ, Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Menace, Age of Ultron (75%), Dead's Man Chest, Secret Life of Pets, Despicable Me 2....

Should I keep going? Cause I can.. I can keep going with more and more examples! Many of those I put up are in the top 50 domestic all time!

So yeah, it happens... a lot! So you can try to diminish the field by using the word "huge" but the truth is that there are numerous examples of audiences ignoring critics and making a movie a huge success or at least giving it a rather large box office number in spite of the critics reviews.

Right.. so let me get this straight... the bad press from a year ago, led to critics giving bad reviews because of the bad press (not because of the movie itself), which than led to audiences seeing the low critic scores which resulted in audiences not showing up?

Even though you have no evidence that the bad press affected critics scores, and I have shown plenty of evidence and can show more evidence that audiences, quite often in fact, ignore critics reviews of movies.

The fact is, and you can google this, it's not often that a critics score or review affects peoples judgement. Many studies have shown this... In fact that's why Cinemascore was started, because Ed Mintz was tired of his view of a movie not aligning with the critics review...

 

PostTrak does the recommendation scores.

Solo also had the lowest Cinemascore since the prequels, but I don't really pay much attention to that score. It only really tells you if people hate it.

Also from Deadline...

Seems reasonable to me. As you mentioned it's not foolproof, but there are a lot of other factors. Actors, release windows, competition, and on and on it goes. Solo would have benefited from being pushed back to December, but Disney wanted that spot for Mary Poppins. In the end, audience/critics simply don't like Solo as much as the other 3 other films.

I really liked Solo, but it didn't connect as much to general audience inside or outside the theaters.

 

Well, that'g going to have the same problem as cinemascore... your article that states am 89% score is from Monday morning. It's a little better than Cinemascore, but, again, it's a low sample size from a small time frame where the fandom is going to make-up a larger percentage of the audience. Thus biased. The one thing that PostTrak has over Cinemascore is that PostTrak does track for the first and second weekends... (though not for the week days). A little better, but not by a whole lot. On a second weekend, they are going to capture enthusiastic fans still. I would be interested in where the score will be after this weekend. I think there is a big problem with these exit polling systems when it comes to franchise movies (in particular Star Wars) as it doesn't account for fandom enthusiasm in those first few days.. So there will be a skewed result.

With that said... As I said in my original post, I am not quite ready to call this one a bomb. The Box Office will get a bump on the weekends as the Fandom goes back to see the movie, but, it's a matter of whether the General Audience goes to see the movie. With Disney's desperation ad campaign that I pointed out, and a Tuesday number that is pretty bad (over 50% less than Rogue One's first Tuesday), it looks like the General Audience may have checked out of this one already.

And a A- is still a good score, and is indicative that at least those that were polled like the movie. Movie's that score an A- usually go on to do a 3.5x multiplier, which for SOLO would put it at almost a $300 million domestic. At this point, a $300 million domestic is a lot better than where this movie is seemingly going to end up (probably less than $250 million). So whether it is or isn't the "lowest" score since the prequels, it's still a good score for what it means in the cinemascore rankings.

Yeah, I wouldn't rely on a someone who writes articles on movies to be a qualified source to analyze peoples psyches. Especially when that same writer was pushing for people to not dismiss Solo's potential for a $170 million OW...

https://deadline.com/2018/05/solo-a...obal-opening-memorial-day-weekend-1202395995/

So his second article trying to explain away why Solo's OW bombed, comes across as excuse making, otherwise he would have pointed out his analytical skills of reading reviewers psyche's in the first article. Basically once Solo didn't do what it was supposed too, well, now the excuses have to be rolled out.

And that is all there is to it. We don't need to rely on articles from non-qualified shrinks to tell us about reviewers pysche's, we don't need to crete flow charts of how bad press gets into the heads of reviewers on a subconscious level, causing them to write bad reviews, and than audiences see bad reviews and stay away (even though studies have shown critics opinions do not have that much power)...

It could be as simple as the movie does not interest general audiences, as well as a decent chunk of the fandom...

 

So your position is every scientific score the movie industry pays to use is flawed. My position is I believe the data they use since it's the best data available and the industry experts use it.

 

That is not really scientific... You can call it that, but, when you are talking about exit polling a sample size of thousands from 6 days worth of movie goers only in 20 markets, out of the millions and millions that see and go to the movie over the course of a hundred or so days across hundreds of markets, that's not scientific. That's why exit polls are constantly wrong, like for elections for example.

When there is no way to scientifically accommodate for how franchises like Star Wars are going to have a skewed score because of fan enthusiasm who are completely pumped after seeing the movie and walking out of the theater.

Isn't that the excuse used against TPM? That people were just excited for another Star Wars movie and loved it as they walked out of the theaters and why they went back again and again, but once they calmed down, well then they realized they hated it?

 

Neither was your "anecdotal" survey of your family. Where is the evidence (as you kept saying up above)?

You suggest bad press doesn't hurt a film amongst general audiences, but this isn't 1982. That bad press is EVERY WHERE. Not just on TV. Open your google app on your smart phone and it gives you stories based on what you like. If you like Star Wars it has been giving you stories about the film for a year, many of which were negative. To suggest that has NO effect is just silly Stick your head in the sand if you must, but it had an effect. What we don't know is this: What was the effect?

I know several fans (OT age) like myself. Unlike myself, they didn't like TLJ. The ones who have seen Solo loved it. One hasn't seen it yet but will be seeing it next week. Again, this isn't a scientific poll, just anecdotal evidence. While I liked TLJ, I get some didn't. Maybe even a large segment didn't. Another large segment appear to have thought it was okay, but had issues with it. Is that effecting Solo, obviously. Again we don't know to what extent.

Finally, you have the release date. Scum and Villainy up there insists May is a fine time to release a film. It can be. But Memorial Day Weekend isn't what it once was. Heck, even the record is only what $30 million above what Solo brought in? Add to that the Avengers behemoth released just a month prior, Deadpool 2, higher gas prices and the other things already mentioned? Headwinds.

Does Disney/LFL need to learn from this? Certainly. I'd be a little more cautious about banging the political drum in future films. What they've done doesn't necessarily bother me, but apparently a large segment is bothered. People go to films to escape the real world, not have that bleed into their escapism. Some of it is unavoidable. Done right, it can be fantastic. But ham handed preaching, and that is apparently what some see it as, doesn't go down well.

What I find hilarious, and it's a bit off topic is that what about 8 months ago people were upset that RJ didn't get to/turned down the chance to direct IX. Now people are happy he's not doing IX. Personally I like JJ. He'll deliver a fun film, and hopefully his cowriter will tamp down some of his worst tendencies.

 

Many of the casual movie goers I know at work went to see Deadpool over the weekend. Having those films back to back weeks had to be bad for both films.

 

Well, it seems you may have a reading comprehension issue... I never said it was scientific, I admitted it was anecdotal! My inclusion of my families view on Solo was to show one side of anecdotal evidence compared to anothers anecdotal evidence (dailylunge)... Here is what I said in case you are still confused:

So as you can see, or you should see anyway, I called it out as being anecdotal. And I sure as hell never said it was scientific.

I said that a lot of people are making the excuse that the production problems are the bad press that has caused the OW. When people say the production problems, they are talking the change in directors, that happened a year ago... I was very specific, as was the people that were saying it was causing the low OW, as to what "bad press" was about.

Let's look at some facts here for a sec...

When the "industry" and the studios release their projections, they aren't just throwing a dart at a dart board. The industry saw an OW that could top $170 million and Disney saw an OW that could top $150 million. They come up with those numbers based on information gathered prior to the release of the movie. Data that shows how much interest in the movie, it's something I wrote about about quite a bit in the TLJ thread, and it's why Studios and the industry are usually so good with OW numbers. So if people were actually going to stay away from Solo because of all the bad press, than that would have shown up in those numbers that Disney saw, and they would have known long ago that their $150 million OW wasn't going to happen... So yeah, bad press from a year ago would have shown up in their data long ago and they would have seen this OW coming, but, they didn't. now did they!

So you can sit there and scream to the rafters how bad press could affect a movie, but, the issue wasn't just any bad press, it was the firing of the directors, which happened a year ago. The pre-release numbers did not reflect some kind of issue with bad press, as I have shown above the estimates showed a strong release, yet, there wasn't a strong release. bad press that was a year old would have shown up in their numbers...

I'm sorry but I have to disagree to a degree here... That Friday number of $35.3 million, which included a $14 million Thursday preview, has nothing to do with WOM! You can sit here and say over and over people have issue with this part of the movie or that part of the movie, but what is essentially a $21 million Friday shows more how little interest there was in this movie than the quality of the movie, because no one has seen the movie yet for any serious WOM to get out there. So you can chalk it up to people having issues with the movie as to why it doesn't do well moving forward, but those Friday and Saturday numbers are indicative of people just not wanting to go at all... (for comparison, R1 did $71 million and $46 million on their first Friday and Saturday).

So yeah... people having issues with the movie itself, don't explain why those Friday and Saturday's numbers were so low...

So Star Wars fans stop being fans on Memorial Day Weekend? Again, look at that Friday and Saturday... Do I need to say it again? That people, especially fans, stayed away, and it had nothing to do with the quality of the movie... Are the millions upon millions of Star Wars fans that stayed away Friday and Saturday, going to show up this weekend? Next? The weekend after that? Again, where are they? Millions of fans that packed theaters for R1 just disappeared because they looked at the calendar and noticed it was Memorial Day weekend? Or cause gas was a little more expensive? Or Deadpool?

The bottom line is that you can come up with all these excuses, changing directors led to bad press, but that doesn't show up in either the Industries or Disney's data showing how much they could expect OW... Blame it on the quality of the movie, which doesn't make sense for the Friday and Saturday numbers because no one had seen the movie yet... Blame it on gas, but that hasn't stopped people from continue to go to AIW nor to DeadPool... Puttign words in my mouth about my anectodal example of my family, that I said was anecdotal, but, never said it was scientific, isn't going to help SOLO's BO either...

I have said it twice now.. I am not prepared to call SOLO a bomb just yet.. I would like to see it play out a little longer to see if the fans do come back, to see if @DailyPlunge is right and that there is terrific WOM out there that drives the movie to have decent legs... I am not counting SOLO out just yet, but, I think it's on number 5 of a 10 count right now...

So you can base your opinions on your feelings, I am looking more at the numbers themselves with a little bit of what the numbers mean, how studios use data to get to their OW projections etc etc

 

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