We may think Star Wars is the shit here in the States, debating about it endlessly, but in China they just call it “shit”. They don’t care about the galaxy George Lucas built and they never really have. The Force Awakens did okay there with $124M but the numbers have been dwindling ever since, and The Last Jedi outright flopped with just $41M. So Lucasfilm and Disney are going to try a different strategy, like pretending the next Star Wars movie isn’t a Star Wars movie at all.
Solo: A Star Wars Story will reportedly be titled Ranger Solo when it opens in China. I think the film is likely to underwhelm everywhere, including China, but this strategy might be the best hope of it doing decently. It’s also a smart move because the story is fashioned in such a way that Chinese audiences may just see it as a standalone space opera, since apparently they have zero interest in anything Star Wars.
According to local media Mtime, Official Chinese title of Solo: A Star Wars Story is Ranger Solo(游侠索罗). And STAR WARS(星球大战) is abandoned in Solo’s local title after Star Wars: The Last Jedi flopped in China. pic.twitter.com/FsOTZcxENW— Gavin Feng (@weier1231997) January 26, 2018
We’re still getting Solo: A Star Wars Story here on May 25th, and China should have their Ranger Solo or whatever soon after.
