$103 million domestic gross over the Memorial Day weekend fell short of studio expectations.
‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ had a rocky debut at the box office, earning 03 million domestic over the Memorial Day weekend.
You can’t say Solo: A Star Wars Story completely crashed at the box office its debut weekend, but it definitely failed to fly as high as expected.
Disney’s second stand-alone picture in the Lucasfilm saga topped the domestic box office as expected with a gross of about $85 million from Friday through Sunday. When the numbers from Monday’s Memorial Day holiday in the United States are added in, the movie is expected to just crack the $100 million mark. That’s far below Disney’s projections of $130 million to $150 million going into the weekend. It also is short of the $155 million opening of the first stand-alone movie in the series, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Reports from overseas also fell short of expectations, grossing $65 million in its opening weekend. The film opened in all the major markets, excepting Japan. Its opening weekend in China grossed $10.1 million, just behind the $10.3 million it grossed in the United Kingdom. It’s worldwide tally stands at an estimated $168 million over its first four days in release.
That leaves a lot of questions regarding the film, which had a troubled production process with original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller being replaced with Ron Howard. Among them: Was Solo released too soon (five months) after Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Was there too much competition for the same audience with Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War already out there?
The next Star Wars movie, the untitled Episode IX, is slated for a December 2019 bow, giving Disney some room to re-consider or fine-tune its approach to the franchise.
Second place went to Fox’s Deadpool 2, which sold $43 million in domestic tickets. That brings its domestic total to $220 million, with foreign grosses of $280 million giving the Marvel sequel a $499 million worldwide total after two weekends in release.
Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Infinity War took in $17 million domestic. It stands at $626 million domestic and $1.3 billion foreign for $1.9 billion worldwide after five weeks in release.
Source: Box Office Mojo
Tom McLean has been writing for years about animation from a secret base in Los Angeles.
