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‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Becomes The First Film In The Franchise To Flop

The Star Wars franchise go way back and it has indeed managed to gather its own fandom over the years. Even up to this date, fans of the franchise, who are most likely in their late 30s now, are definitely sharing their love for this science fiction films to the next generation.

With all the newest and most advanced ways to do cool special effects and CGI, it is expected that the latest and the upcoming films will be so much better and every other way. Then again, it would seem that it is not exactly the case.

In 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilm of George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars universe, for $4 billion. Aside from this, Lucas would receive 40 million shares from Disney. One of the major reasons why the Star Wars creator has decided to pass it on to one of the biggest companies in the entertainment industry is because of his plans to retire. In a statement, he said that for 35 years, he had worked so hard to create this universe and it is now time for it to be passed on to the next generation.

Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger even stated that this is indeed one of the biggest entertainment properties that they have had the opportunity to acquire. They’re obviously talking about not just having been able to buy the Star Wars franchise, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well for $3.96 billion, and even the ABC network for $5.2 billion.

They have managed to release the Star Wars: The Force Awakens back in 2015, wherein it made $2.066 billion in the box office, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016 with $1.056 billion, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2017 that made $1.332 billion.

This year, Disney decided to go with their usual strategy and release another film from the Star Wars Universe entitled Solo: A Star Wars Story, wherein it features that the story of Han Solo that takes place before the very first Star Wars film was released in 1977. It is still out in theaters worldwide, but it doesn’t see, to be doing well compared to the others since it hasn’t even been over $300 million yet.

Solo Hits Low At Box Office

An official statement from Dave Hollis, Walt Disney’s distribution chief was given to Hollywood Reporter just two weeks after the film was released and he admitted that the debut of this particular Star Wars film was not impressive at all, considering its budget and just the standards of the franchise. It may actually be the very first Star Wars flop in history.

Hollis said that there might be a questionable frequency since they have recently just released a new Avenger film from Marvel and it was indeed a huge success. He also stated that it may be on how often the people go the cinemas in just a month and it might have been too much and too soon for them to see another science fiction film in the cinemas.

What Makes A Movie Flop?

According to film experts, there are a lot of things that must be considered for a film to officially be called a flop. Production companies take huge risks when it comes to spending hundreds of millions of money for a film’s budget. The budget would be the basis when it comes to a film being considered as a flop. It is said that when a film does not double its budget, then it may be considered as a flop.

The budget of a film covers the talents, which are the people working in the film such as directors, actors, and producers. Every name that will be associated with or be part of a film project is important.

Some critics say that this is what Solo: A Star Wars Story went wrong, its lead star doesn’t exactly scream box-office to its name, and this is despite the fact that the Star Wars franchise already has its own fandom, this doesn’t obviously secure that they would be willing to watch it in the cinemas or just wait for it to come out in Netflix. Experts also believe that the marketing strategy of Disney is definitely not something to worry about since they always go all out when it comes to that.

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