'Solo' struggles with 'Star Wars' fatigue: $83.3M at the box office

Jake Coyle | The Associated Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Following orders, the 'Star Wars' way Cast and crew of "Solo: A Star Wars Story" reveal whether they're as bad at following orders as their film's rogueish title character. (May 24)

NEW YORK — In the largest disturbance yet in Disney's otherwise lucrative reign over Star Wars, the Han Solo spinoff Solo: A Star Wars Story opened well below expectations with a franchise-low $83.3 million in ticket sales for the three-day weekend in North American theaters.

Disney estimated Sunday that Solo will gross $101 million for the four-day Memorial Day weekend, a figure below even the opening weekends of the much-derided Star War prequels. Last week, forecasts ran as high as $150 million.

Overseas ticket sales were even worse. Solo, starring Alden Ehrenreich in the role made iconic by Harrison Ford, grossed $65 million internationally in its opening weekend, including a paltry $10.1 million in China.

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"Of course we would have hoped for this to be a bit bigger," says Dave Hollis, Disney's distribution chief. "We're encouraged by the response that people have had to the film. It got a good CinemaScore (A-minus). The exits are very encouraging."

Solo came in with a Millennium Falcon's worth of baggage following the firing of directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller near the end of production, who were replaced by Ron Howard. With the rejiggered production, the budget soared well past $250 million.

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But the cause of the spinoff's disappointing performance may have had as much to do with Star Wars fatigue (The Last Jedi exited theaters just last month) and the stiffer competition of a summer holiday weekend. While no major releases dared to open against Solo, Deadpool 2 moved its release date up a week ahead of Solo.

The gambit may have hurt both releases. After debuting with $125 million last weekend, the R-rated Ryan Reynolds sequel dropped 66% to second place with $42.7 million and an estimated $53.5 million four-day haul.

Solo notched the biggest Memorial Day weekend opening in several years, but it also came on the heels of a pair of a summer-sized blockbusters — Deadpool 2 and Disney's own Avengers Infinity War — making for an unusually crowded May. Infinity War added $16.5 million in its fifth weekend to bring its domestic total to $621.7 million and its global sales to $1.9 billion — both among the highest of all-time.

Rounding out the rest of the top five: The counterprogrammed Book Club, starring Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, finished fourth with $9.45 million, while Melissa McCarthy's college comedy Life of the Party was fifth with $5.1 million. Final figures are expected Tuesday.

"It is a business that is built on momentum but also one where people probably are only able to get to theaters a certain number of weeks in a row," Hollis says.

There were questions beyond the effect the calendar had on Solo. While reviews were generally positive (71% "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes), there was little about Solo that made the movie a must-see event.

Fans were skeptical of Ehrenreich and uncertain about the dismissal of Lord and Miller (the popular filmmaking duo behind 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie). Unlike any Star Wars release before, Solo was deemed — gasp — skippable.

As it arrived in theaters, Disney might have been wishing it had instead made a Lando Calrissian spinoff with the red-hot Donald Glover, star of TV's Atlanta (Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has said a Lando movie is a possibility).

While the original Star Wars films helped define the summer moviegoing experience, Disney released its previous three Star Wars films in December. What most hurt Solo was the "fatigue factor" of a May Star Wars film following a December one, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore.

"It's the compressed time frame between the two Star Wars films and the highly competitive nature of this marketplace. It is summer, after all," says Dergarabedian. "The good news is that the next film isn't until December 2019. That's plenty of breathing space. I think part of the allure of the Star Wars brand in the past has been the long wait."

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That time might also be valuable for Lucasfilm and Disney to find a way to counter the diminishing returns of its multi-billion-dollar franchise. To help propel Solo internationally, Disney brought the film to Cannes Film Festival, flooding the French film festival's red carpet with Stormtroopers.

The Last Jedi also flopped in China (it was pulled from theaters after a week), and Rian Johnson's movie — even though it grossed $1.3 billion worldwide — showed relatively weak legs at the box office, while proving divisive among Star Wars die-hards.

The magic around a Star Wars film may be fading. To right the ship on Episode 9, Lucasfilm has turned to an old friend: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams. He, too, is replacing a fired director after Colin Trevorrow departed last fall.

Contributing: Kim Willis