(CNN) "Incredibles 2" is a huge hit, and "Solo: A Star Wars Story" isn't. The former exceeded box-office forecasts, while the latter flew well below them.

The natural assumption would be that one movie works, and the other doesn't. But that's not really the case, reflecting how the movie business is now analyzed and pored over like primary results -- an expectations game,where the numbers drive perception, everyone occupies the role of pundit and prognosticator, and the public often sends mixed messages.

Subjectively, both "Incredibles" and "Solo" are good, solid summer entertainments, derived from established franchises. Yet while Pixar's long-deferred sequel shattered box-office records for animated movies, Lucasfilm's latest addition to the "Star Wars" universe fell far short of the standard established by other sequels and spinoffs.

For reasons that still remain something of a mystery, the audience simply didn't show up for "Solo" in the anticipated numbers. But it's easy to draw an inference that disparate commercial fortunes serve as a referendum on their creative quality, when the truth is that it has more to do with the limitations of box-office tracking, which like any attempt to predict behavior, has an element of uncertainty baked into it.

Perhaps for that reason, it was refreshing to chat with someone over the weekend who had really enjoyed "Solo," and expressed enthusiasm about a possible sequel to it. When told that was very unlikely to happen -- companies like Disney generally don't double down on bets that, at this point, are projected to lose them money -- she sounded mystified, wondering how they could let the story end where it did.

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