Werewolf by Night wrote:I don’t have a dog in this race, but remember that Rogue One was also considered “troubled,” had extensive reshoots, and ended up being critically successful and making a billion dollars. But I would also totally believe Ron Howard would break something that wasn’t broken. (He’s no Tony Gilroy.)
To be fair, though. I've always thought that from Disney/Lucasfilm's perspective,
Rogue One might have been a small disappointment, in that it only grossed about 50% of what
The Force Awakens did. I mean, they could never have realistically hoped to top $2.068 billion, but, especially with the creative use of the original film (e.g. Darth Vader), I wonder if they weren't hoping for about $500 million more than the $1.056 billion they got, which would have probably confirmed audience rapture vis a vie the first film. Now, with
The Last Jedi slipping well down the top ten for last weekend, I'm not sure $1.5 billion is on the cards for the sequel, either. Again, I'm not saying these are box office failures, but usually, the goal with a sequel is to try to gross more the previous film, not make a lot, but still a lot less. Therefore, I think a lot could hinge on how well
Solo ends up doing.
Now, I can't see
Solo being a bomb (obviously, in relative terms), but I wonder if it will take in as much as
Rogue One did. I'm fairly certain society says that a male-fronted "original" Star Wars film should do better than one fronted by a female, so that works in the film's favor. More importantly, I know I really don't have any desire to see a Han Solo film without Harrison Ford in it (much less with another, younger Han Solo), so the marketing and trailers are really going to have to wow me to get me to consider going, especially after the dumpster fire that was
The Last Jedi has soured me on seeing
Episode IX.
I am also cognizant of the fact that we've just had Batman/Superman film and a Justice League film underperform and bomb respectively, so we do have to be prepared for the idea that peak Star Wars has come and gone, and that Disney may have to settle for each subsequent film in this cycle making less than the film before it, at least in terms of the "sequel trilogy" versus the "anthology films". It's worth remembering, too, that we've had two cycles of three films prior to this, but that the Disney cycle is five (or six?) films, which is a lot of Star Wars over a short period of time.