Solo Headed To Become A Flop? Yep, It Flopped.

[Soundwave]

Main thing is the curse of the OT still hangs over these sequel movies because if you try and do anything different with one of the beloved characters, you will get angry backlash.

The "womenz r too strong!!!" stuff I don't buy as something the actual *general*, *normal*, audience really gives a fuck about ... The Force Awakens was a massive success with monstrous repeat viewings, domestically in its in the Avatar/Titanic tier which is impossible to get into unless you have massive repeat business. And people won't go see a movie several times these days unless they REALLY like it. It's $12-$15 a ticket these days + an arm and a leg for popcorn and soda. Rogue One was also massively successful with a lead female and a very diverse cast. So that isn't that issue IMO. Solo has a white lead, a suitably "supporting female role" who is clearly secondary, and has basically no politics (the Lando stuff is a laughable non-story) in it and is not doing well.

That stuff is not impacting box office. TFA is a happier, funnier movie and Han Solo is basically Han Solo so there's not much to complain about with it. TLJ was always going to be controversial because of the handling of Luke, which shocked even Mark Hamil and Daisy Ridley the first time they read the script. That's the main issue with TLJ ... they went too dark/controversial with Luke and that was too risky of a direction. They should've just given the fans the more predictable "Luke trains Rey, gets a very heroic send off".

The other problem is "mopey Luke" basically ends up taking over the 3rd act of the movie, so your heroine from the 1st movie (Rey) has nothing to really do but ... lift rocks? It doesn't work, to have the "disillusioned Luke storyline" they basically put Rey's story on hold for an entire movie, movie should've reunited Rey/Finn/Poe much earlier. It's the end of the 2nd movie and Rey is just now meeting Poe? That would be like Luke just meeting Leia at the end of ESB.

You can't take risks with legacy characters, that's just the bottom line, TLJ bet everything on that concept, and while I personally found it some what interesting in a "what if?" kind of expanded universe way, it just wasn't worth it to do that in a movie. Sometimes it's just better to play it safe, Star Wars is not art anymore (if it ever was), it's just a comfort blanket product and you can't mess with certain things.