It’s a mixed bag when looking at the box office prospects for Solo: A Star Wars Story, but let me say that I have a bad feeling about this.
The film opened Thursday night previews with $14.1M, breaking the Memorial Day weekend record held by 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. That film went on to earn a record $139.8M over the four-day holiday.
At this point, analysts are projecting more than $140M for Solo, which would make it the new Memorial Day all-time leader, but would also be the lowest weekend total for any Star Wars movie since Disney took over. While I think its expected for the spinoff to earn less than the core trilogy films, Rogue One managed to open with $155M on its way to $1.05B overall.
China delivered a crushing blow to Solo‘s deflector shields, also, with the film only earning $3.3M on its way to $11.4M in 43 international markets. To be fair, expectations had to be pretty low because China has NEVER been that big into Star Wars, at least not on the level of Marvel or even Fast & the Furious. They love them some Vin Diesel.
Solo has incredible tough competition to deal with from Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2. How well it does is going to depend on early buzz, which has been mixed among critics so far, and word of mouth from those who decided to shoot first and worry about reviews later.
