starcraft said:
I am sorry but I think you have some confirmation bias going on here. You started this thread anticipating a flop, and are now selectively interpreting information to give yourself that result. Solo definitely disappointed relative to expectations in its opening weekend. But domestically it was still the the 4th biggest memorial weekend in a decade. Also, an eventual total of $550-600m is hard to call a bomb in any language. Its almost certain to be profitable, has received strong reviews and excellent audience scores. Like yourself (and apparently Disney) I too am disappointed that a good film didn't do better, but there just isn't a reasonable definition by which it can be labelled a bomb/flop (at this stage). Where I do agree is that Disney needs to learn from the mistakes made on this film. Mismanagement of production that resulted in the budget going from $150m to $250m have clearly taken their toll on the potential for major profit, and seem to have had a significant impact on mindshare - particularly in overseas territories. |
Might be the 4th biggest, but it's also about context. Star Wars is far too big a franchise for that to be acceptable. Especially when the memorial day weekend hasn't had much in the way of particularly lucrative releases of late anyway, so it would have been a very low bar to clear for that #1 spot. In fact, it's my personal belief that's the reason they chose to release this movie at this time of year, because they didn't have faith it could do the kind of awesome numbers Star Wars usually hits, so they figured "ah hell, memorial day weekend, we can say we had the biggest release ever there. Nice headline." They won't be pleased that they couldn't even sniff that goalpost.
