'Solo' Will Be the First Star Wars Movie to Lose Money

In the course of just four franchise installments, Disnay may have turned Star Wars from a guaranteed profit machine into just another ho-hum franchise. Solo: A Star Wars Story is set to lose tens of millions of dollars for the studio, marking the first time a Disney Star Wars movie has failed to turn a profit. Does this mean that Disney is rethinking its plan to churn out a Star Wars movie every year? Read on to find out.

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

To borrow one of Han Solo's lines from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, "That's not how the Force works!"

It's an apt way to sum up the troubled performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. In one of the biggest box-office surprises in recent times, Solo is badly underperforming and will become the first of the Star Wars movies made by Disney and Lucasfilm to lose money.

Wall Street analyst Barton Crockett says Solo will lose more than $50 million. Industry financing sources, however, say that figure could come in at $80 million or higher, although no one knows the exact terms of Disney's deals for home entertainment and television, among other ancillary revenues.

Solo, directed by Ron Howard, isn't likely to gross much more than $400 million globally against a budget of at least $250 million and a major multimillion-dollar marketing spend. The movie lost major altitude in its second weekend of play to finish Sunday with a domestic total of $148.9 million and a global cume of $264.2 million.

Until now, Disney and Lucasfilm appeared unstoppable. Force Awakens, benefiting mightily from pent-up demand, earned $2.068 billion globally to rank as the No. 3 title of all time, not adjusted for inflation. The stand-alone title Rogue One: A Star Wars Story flew to $1.056 billion, while Star Wars: The Last Jedi grossed $1.332 billion. Since expectations for any film in the Star Wars franchise are sizable, no one expected Solo to fly so low.

"This marks a tough return to movie reality for a Disney that had in recent years enjoyed a can't-miss mystique," Crockett wrote in his note to investors.

Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.

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