‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ director Ron Howard recently spoke about the film’s less than stellar box office performance, and took the opportunity to thank the cast and crew for their hard work. The ‘Star Wars’ franchise has been tenuous throughout the years, but it seemed that things were going in the right direction when it was bought by Disney. ‘The Force Awakens,’ ‘Rogue One,’ and ‘The Last Jedi’ earned a combined $4 billion at the worldwide box office, and ‘Solo’ was expected to continue the trend.
Sadly, ‘Solo’ will go down in history as the first movie in the ‘Star Wars’ franchise to lose money. Since the movie opened over Memorial Day weekend, ‘Solo’ has earned $176.1 million domestically and $312.2 million worldwide. While this was probably a bitter pill to swallow, Howard has kept his positivity on Twitter and has taken the time to offer his opinion on the film’s poor outcome.
Howard responded to a Tweet from a fan slamming other fans who may be forgoing ‘Solo’ in theaters because of their feelings on Rian Johnson’s ‘The Last Jedi.’ Howard expressed his disappointment about the way things have turned out, saying:
While the movie could have suffered from fair weather fans of the franchise, ‘Solo’ may have also suffered at the hands of its marketing campaign. ‘Solo’ was given a tough position, being released in the shadow of powerhouse films like ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and ‘Deadpool 2,’ which surely hurt the box office performance as well.
The ‘Star Wars’ fandom is notorious for being fair-weathered, as they have come into question for harassing Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Kelly Marie Tran (Rose) so much that both women deleted social media accounts. Hopefully, the fans can pull it together and help ‘Episode IX’ earn more at the box office next Christmas.
