REC

It’s not the status of the property that matters. MCU has built up a ton of unknowns into big stars in movies that are big hits. In order for the MCU to bomb they’d need to make 2-3 bad or divisive movies in a row. Since they aren’t doing that, none of their new movies will bomb. But a bad cap marvel movie could cause problems.

Can’t check your expectations at the door if you don’t bother to pay to go through it.

Basically zero demand for this movie. Mediocre WOM is the kicker. How fast can theaters drop it?

I think its possible the trades and media who want to stay on Disney's good side or who want access didn't want to get ahead of the failure story. If they correctly projected bad numbers ahead of time, but it surprised with a stronger than expected showing (maybe because of holiday weekend walkups) that doesn't help them in their relationships with Disney. But if they overproject, and then it comes under as expected, they never crossed Disney and its an opportunity to write new think piece articles on what went wrong.

Correct. I think as of right now, a whole large swath of the fanbase sits out ep9. Not saying it won't get a GA, not saying it won't make money. But I do think the drop off from TLJ will be precipitous and noticeable. There are ways for them to get those fans back into the theater, they have time and capability for some smart marketing. It's recoverable. But Solo doesn't really help or hurt them, its clearly a non-event. Nobody is bothering to see it.

I think the buzz/desire for Ocean's 8 is pretty low. It'll bomb hard.

They had it at 185m a month ago, and were regurgitating the Disney/LF talking point that they had more presales than Black Panther. Anyone remember that one?

Just semi-seriously here, do you really think Rose Tico is gonna put any asses in seats? In order for people to get the impression they need to show up. Among segments of the fanbase she's regarded lower than Jar Jar Binks.

It's going to be a long 1.5 years.

And it wasn't even very scientifically accurate or logical. A planet around a black hole wouldn't behave like that, have giant waves, be operating in time like that, be physically shaped that way, look like that, or anything. It wouldn't be a survivable place by humans, space suits or otherwise. The movie pretends to have science but its actually just a big pile of emotions.

I'm really holding myself back from complaining about TLJ and all its megatons of flaws. Just saying... hope you appreciate my restraint.

I really wonder about their official reaction, but I suspect it will be to do what they've been doing: spin spin spin. They don't want to admit defeat on any front, I get that. They don't want to admit fault, that would then imply they would need to take corrective action. That usually involves lopping off heads, and I can understand why they either believe they're not there yet or they don't want to go there. The other path is to do something like what Wells Fargo did once they were clearly caught and getting eviscerated publicly for their misdeads: start doing your mea culpas. Say you're sorry and you're gonna work hard to get people back into the fold. Wells Fargo actually runs TV commercials saying exactly this. That's kinda what you do when you hit rock bottom in terms of public opinion (or at least believe you're on the cusp of getting there). That's a bit extreme, and I would be shocked if they went that way right now. It'd probably take the financial failure of ep9 before they'd even consider something like that. So cynic in me says they're gonna keep spinning. The initial spin was to blame Memorial day weekend, even though it was their choice to put it out over Memorial day weekend. But they have a lot of other fallbacks right? Blame the fans, blame the troubled production, blame the competitive calendar (whatever that means). Claim its exceeding expectations even though its clearly not. Could probably have a list of 10 or more half decent spin moves and ways of claiming faux-victory.

Someone should start A Quiet Place > Solo club. It won’t beat Solo, but it won’t be that far off. ... especially OS. And AQP will at least make money, and unlike Solo actually create more movies.

The takeaway ought to be build on your fanbase, don’t shit on it. Various people at Lucasfilm, Rian, JJ etc, have openly mocked and taunted the SW fans. Various statements made in interviews or off-the-cuff social media made by them have helped to poison this well. The fanbase didn’t wake up one day and decide to arbitrarily hate Star Wars, the recent batch of creators and leaders have caused this to happen. Yeah the megafans are about as crazy as a bag of cats. You still need to treat them with respect and guide them the right way. If you don’t show up for them, they may not show up for you next time. i hope this puts to rest this idea that Star Wars is indestructible and fans always show up. Clearly they always have and that is true, until it’s not. Things are different now and Lucasfilm needs to acknowledge this new reality if they want to navigate it.

You really don't understand anything about star wars do you?

It's shocking to me that Solo might not even get 100m for a 4 day OW. That 80m for 3 days is possible, and it might not even get that. I'm still stunned quite honestly. Maybe it gets above those numbers, just the fact that the expectations are way, way below that 170m OW initial estimate is beyond nuts. I think IW legs will surprise everyone, just a bit. DP2 has its audience played out, and Solo is no threat to anything or anyone. Theaters will be looking to get it out as fast as they possibly can. IW will be at 625 Dom by monday, I would put its final number closer to 675-680. Maybe higher. Again just a bit of overperformance, not much. (Solo cast the wrong GOT actor) The only thing IW has to worry about now is when Chris Pratt competes with himself in JW2. Pratts everywhere.

I think audiences in the aggregate thought JL was fun, messy, and skippable. Sounds like Solo to me. We're only arguing over small percentages of reaction either way, they both fall into this category from a GA standpoint.

I'm gonna point out, I said this was a rumor a week ago (production cost over 300m) and I got mocked for making up rumors. Glad they're admitting to it. It's good to be right, again, about how this movie cost way too much and is unlikely to make its money back... during its theatrical run or any time after including merchandising. The parallels to JL are very tangible. A big mess is a big mess.

Star wars is always a hit. Star wars can never flop, it can never fail. Only the audience can fail Star wars.

Just a reminder, JL did $38,471,202 for its thurs-fri combined debut. I realize there are important differences here in the release and timing, still wondering how much over/under Solo is compared to that number.

I honestly think JL is the Dom benchmark here. It may have slightly better critic reviews, but it's got worse user reviews. JL did 230m Dom, I'm wondering if it can beat that.

If the PR spin is going to put out is to blame Memorial Day, then why in the world would they release it on Memorial Day? Knowing the headwinds this holiday supposedly creates for them. And with every projection prior to a week ago saying this was going to be big. This is spin/damage control of the most transparent and lazy kind. It doesn't add up and it's obvious it doesn't add up.

Correct... without the OS boost. So, doing great of course.

Which is actually 6.5/10 average, if you discount the RT weighted-upward averaging system. Among top critics its worse, being a 62% or 6.1 average. With user scores at 56% and top critics at 62%, everyone seems to be much closer in agreement on this one than they were on TLJ. Basically a mediocre film, critically speaking.

Sit right next to them even though there's tons of space. Keep making eye contact with them every time a "funny" joke is told, but don't say anything. Just stare.