Disney is beginning to discover that even its Star Wars franchise may not be immune to losers.
The newest release “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is predicted to be the first of the franchise to lose money.
First Star Wars Loser?
Solo: A Star Wars Story isn’t performing nearly as well as Disney had hoped. The latest in the Star Wars franchise debuted in the United States on May 25. Since then, it has seen disappointing sales. The Hollywood Reporter estimated potential losses of more than $50 million, citing a Wall Street analyst and sources in the financing industry.
Once the film reaches its full run, Solo will likely gross just slightly more than $400 million worldwide at the box office. The production budget for the movie alone was $250 million. This doesn’t include the massive, multimillion dollar marketing campaign launched to promote the movie.
The First 10 Days
The first ten days for the film’s release brought in an estimated $264 million at the box office worldwide, according to ComScore data. Now that the film has put its second week in theatres behind it, it is continuing to lose steam at the box office.
If Solo does, in fact, achieve a $400 million box office run, as predicted, it would make the film the worst performing original release of any Star Wars live action film. This, according to Box Office Mojo figures.
Reviews Aren’t Helping
Making the situation worse for the film are the consistently bad reviews the film has received. In fact, of the four Star Wars films in which Disney has participated so far, Solo has received the worst reviews overall.
Of course, this type of loss won’t be big enough to cause any real harm to a company the size of Disney. After all, the studio is still riding the wave of the wildly successful box office sales of both Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. Next up for the studio is Incredibles 2, which is already expected to be one of the summer’s top performers.
Moreover, despite the poor performance in theatres, Disney may still recoup its Solo losses through television, home entertainment, streaming video and other additional revenue streams.