Abrams makes crowd pleasing general entertainment, just like the Marvel movies are. I'm sure Episode IX will be a less controversial and more typical blockbuster movie with the same classic Star Wars feel Force Awakens had, which will bring a lot of people back into the fold. Assuming Last Jedi's divisiveness is a reason for these Solo numbers anyway... I'm not really convinced that's true, I think it might have just come out at a bad time and had a smell of death on it from the director change, but who knows really.

Edit: Removed pointless rambling about the future of the franchise. Let's see how the next one does. ;)

Aaaaaaand... it's a bomb in China! Bet you didn't see that coming!

I'm starting to wonder why Disney is so adamant about releasing these new Star Wars films here theatrically in the first place. Actually, I'm starting to wonder why the state censor even grants licenses to screen these films, considering no one wants to see them and they take up screening rooms that could be used to exhibit stuff that is actually not a sure-fire way to keep said screening rooms empty for 2 hours.

As for the film itself: not interested. I'll probably watch it on a flight some day. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the kind of milking Star Wars is receiving from Disney. Time was, the release of a new Star Wars film was something special, something to get excited about. Now it's like "Ugh, they made ANOTHER one of those?!?"

On the other hand we barely know him, so is a lot of people gonna care about his movie at all?

I mean, if nothing else Solo proved that you can't count on the hardcore fans alone to make a Star Wars movie a hit. And even among those hardocre fans a lot of them seems to be done with Disney's Star Wars, at least unless they really get their shit together. And outside of the hardocre fanbase no one knows or cares about Boba Fett. Worse yet, unless they make some huge creative leap, it's reasonable to expect a Fett movie will look and feel a lot like Solo - it pretty much has to be set in this criminal underworld of Empire-era galaxy.I think Fett will have an uphill battle. Of course, a lot will be decided by Episode IX. I'm pretty sure Solo was hurt by the, shall we say, mixed reception of Last Jedi.

It baffles me too. It's like they want the "Star Wars movie crashed and burned in China" headlines.

I think they literally just assume they can use their Disney power to make it a hit in China eventually, they just have to cast the right person or make the right movie. I doubt they'll stop trying.

I just don't find myself in the mood to watch it so like TLJ I'll probably give it a skip. I'm starting to think that Star Wars has left me behind :P Still, I'm definitely looking forward to the Fett movie.

Even the most megalomaniacal Disney exec probably already realised that this ship has well and truly sailed. If their promotional efforts are any indication, they have realised this a while ago already. I wrote about this before in another thread, but back in Winter '15, they literally pulled out all the stops to "sell" Star Wars to the Chinese people. They turned all of Beijing into one giant advertisement for The Force Awakens. SW merch everywhere! Literally EVERYWHERE! These efforts were significantly reduced for Rogue One (Hey, WeChat offers stickers of cartoon versions of Rogue One characters for free download and there's a Donnie Yen standee in the lobby of the local multiplex now - not quite as cool as the high-gloss life-size stormtrooper statues they had for the last movie, but it'll have to do!). Last Jedi opened to little fanfare and Solo is... out now, I suppose.

I guess it's like in interpersonal relationships: First impressions matter. The Chinese were promised that this was the hot new thing, but what they got were fairly mediocre films - not that mediocrity matters much to the average Chinese filmgoer, I'll get to that in a second - that 100% rode on nostalgia alone. But how to capitalise on nostalgia in a country where you have to insert explanatory intertitles throughout the movie, because no one has any idea what's going on or who any of these characters are (to say nothing about having any emotional bond to any of the characters)?

Yet they keep releasing them for some strange reason. Maybe it's out of loyalty to the brand. Maybe they figure that earnings in the double-digits are better than no earnings at all. But I honestly don't think they're actually counting on these films suddenly becoming massive hits by some miraculous twist of fate.

My humble suggestion: Remake the old trilogy. Cast Dwayne Johnson as the lead and instead of space opera make it about giant robots that beat each other up for two and a half hours. Tie in some Marvel characters just in case. Nothing less will do. It might work. That is, it might work if the Star Wars brand name alone isn't enough by now to make people want to stay well away.

Star Wars fatigue anyone? I remember at last year May the 4th day, my 6 years old nephew who had cables in his house said "Star Wars again, Star Wars again.". And according to the NYTimes, there are 9(!) in development.

As I understand there's a limit on how many foreign movies can be shown in China every year. I wonder if this might be the case of Disney wanting to screw over the competition by using up as much of that limit as possible, regardless of how much sense that makes for a particular film.

I was hoping to go see Solo with a much bigger group. In the end NONE of the people I went to see the three previous movies with even mentioned maybe wanting to see it, and they are huge SW fans who always bought tickets a month in advance. Another one when I asked him to come with us yesterday outright said he just doesn't feel like it.

It was the opening weekend, a Star Wars movie, and the room was mostly empty. It was kind of surreal honestly.

Plus there's a live action tv show and a new animated one in the works.

That's why I said before they might have to take a break and go back to the drawing board. Disney was certain they can make Star Wars work just like Marvel, but SW isn't Marvel. They fell into the same trap that other studios did trying to ape the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I don't want them to stop making SW movies altogether, I don't want them to fail, after all I did have fun with Solo, but it's obvious this model isn't working.

To put thing in perspective - many people called Justice League a box office disaster (which was always a bit of an overstatement, but whatever), and that had a similiar budget (and also due to reshoots) as Solo, and it had a global opening weekend of 280 million. Solo has 150. Just let that sink in.

Disney can go fuck themself and J.J. Abrams is an untalented twat who doesn't give a shit about the history of an established universe. These... "people" are just money worshipping dumbfucks who are the best advertisement for abortion.
And no, I'm not going to be reasonable. If someone doesn't like my opinion, fine, but don't try to change it or you can go fuck yourself and jump in a Sarlacc pit!

I haven't watched it, but I was just thinking: we just had a massive Infinity War weekend followed by a Deadpool 2 weekend followed by Solo.

And, frankly, movie tickets are pretty expensive around here.

I honestly think Solo is suffering from coming on the tail end of a couple of amazing weekend releases. I don't think it's suffering for just that, I think the movie not being incredibly amazing is a big part of the problem as well. I'm just saying that "when" is another thing not helping the movie.

Personally, I watched Infinity War and skipped both Deadpool 2 and this one. I have the right to a couple of half-priced tickets in one session once a month (due to some Telefonica promotion thingy), so I wasn't so keen to pay full price in a ticket.

Clearly, since Abrams had nothing to do with the movie in question :P

That would be nefarious of Disney indeed! :D

China does have a limit on how many foreign productions they show in the cinema each year. Unfortunately, I don't have any exact numbers or any deeper insight about this process. I don't even know if by foreign they actually mean American or if all other international productions are thrown into the same pot as well. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the number is set at about 30something films, which strikes me as a very low number, but it's not like I'm keeping count either. The most rigid embargo on Hollywood productions I personally witnessed came in August last year. Remember Wolf Warrior 2, my pick for best movie of 2017? That one ended up being the seventh highest grossing film of that year internationally. Why did it dominate the Chinese box office throughout the month of August? Well, it's a fun action flick and all, but the fact that there were zero Hollywood productions competing in August may have helped box office revenues a great deal. That and the fact that Wolf Warrior 2's main competitor came in the form of The Founding Of An Army (which might be even more reviled than Star Wars - at least the few people who saw Star Wars actually paid for their tickets, whereas they have to give them away for something like Founding Of An Army).

I guess my point is this: I wouldn't put it besides them to engage in cinematic protectionism. But by and large the Chinese strike me as a profit-oriented people. Like, Ferengi Rules Of Acquisition-type profit-oriented. And surely the local film industry/cinema owners would have a word to say about what gets played or not. Giving homegrown productions some leverage over its foreign competitors, yes, absolutely. but as far as Star Wars is concerned, I can't imagine cinema chains willingly agreeing to not make any money by exibiting a film to an empty house for no reason other than being nice to Disney.

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He did more than enough damage with Episode VII and the Star Trek movies!