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That’s still incredibly lukewarm as hell given that I think audiences expect a higher standard from these films.

Looking a bit like a giant space-dwarf right about now.

Ok... I can't... ok. Ok! The fact that its even mentioned that we could be looking at a 3 day 80m result is staggering. This is SW over memorial day weekend. Parents take kids out to see family friendly movies cause they need activities to do. My most negative prediction never would've been 80m for 3 days OW, regardless of what I personally may think of the movie.

It's possible cinematic universes have to be earned through the fanbase, from the ground up. Earned, not just purchased by acquiring a brand and doing with it as you please. There are many ways in which Marvel could've screwed up the MCU, fortunately they didn't. They retained and even expanded their fanbase without turning off the GA at the same time. Really remarkable.

The 14.1m in previews seem to point to a potentially middling result this weekend? Like not great, not terrible, something down the middle. Is that how you guys interpret it or do we not know yet? This would seem to point to something above 100m domestic for the 4 day.

Correct. Maybe some don't understand, but if Solo fails it's BO run it's because TLJ caused a lot of problems to the brand and franchise. Solo could do well as a SW movie if the franchise was strong, it could coast forward with good sales just on the SW movie label alone. But the issues TLJ created combined with a mediocre Solo movie is exactly the topic that needs to be discussed.

Well you have to admit this also makes no sense in terms of the larger story. TLJ posits that Luke is on the island, disconnected from the force and rejecting all things Jedi. Yet the island is the home of the Jedi, and he's guarding the books, and he's quite literally living right above THE great source of dark side power (it's like, 50 feet below his hut). So, if he hates the Jedi and the force and wants nothing to do with it, why is he there? Logically, Luke should be on the opposite side of the galaxy from wherever this place is... because TLJ says he's a curmudgeon who doesn't care or like any of this stuff and has rejected all of it. See the logical disconnect there? TFA put him there because, logically, he's doing something important and/or significant there. TLJ illogically has him there for no good reason, and makes a throwaway (literally...) joke out of it. But really the worst part about all this is that it makes no logical sense. It was done just to surprise you, but its a surprise with no logical payoff.

In order for little kids to see it, their parents have to continue to be invested in SW. In order for tweens and teens to see it, they need reasons to care about a Han Solo adventure movie (a character their dad likes but is too old and boring for them). Prognosis: Not good.

If BP is your one, singular data point to prove audience score manipulation... then I don't think there's anything there. The score is 79, which is a bit low I admit, but only very slightly lower than it should be. It's not 60, or 50ish, like TLJ. A score of 79 means that audiences liked the movie, and that's reflected in the legs. I'm not sure anyone can find such a movie... again, one that has great legs and yet received a really terrible audience score that was probably manipulated. TLJ had awful legs and an awful user score. BP had great legs, and a solid positive user score. If some other movie exists, point it out. I think the audience scores online are far more predictive and correlated to performance than some would want to admit.

I wouldn't say 79% is voted down so much as voted on. That's basically 80%, and I think that's a fair score all things considered. I think we could agree that BP is good, but not perfect. And something in the ballpark of 75-90 is a typical, fair score. That would depend on how big the flaws are to you. I liked the movie a lot, but I came out of it thinking it was 80-85% and realistically a bit overhyped. So I wouldn't call this an example of score manipulation. Maybe there's a very small number of racists and haters in there dragging an 85 down to a 79, but those people are almost certainly countered by the people who loved it too much, rating it 100/100 perfect. As for people giving Thor 2 a 77... well I think that's just how people felt at the time.

I'm just curious if you have any examples of that. A movie where it had great legs, but the online audience score was voted way down despite those great legs. In the case of TLJ, it seems to correlate. The movie had bad legs and the audience score online was low.

I don't really need to say this is pretty crazy. 650 is the minimum now. IW is going to end up around 625 after the memorial day 4 day weekend. If you think it can't even do another 20m in its Dom run after, that is nuts. I'm not saying it's going to reach 700, but 650 is definitely the floor now. It's barely been at the theater for 5 weeks, and it's got 625. It's not going to just disappear from the theater over the next 4 weeks either. And I will point out again, it's going to be at 1.9b WW by Monday, so 2b is also happening. The only question is how much over.

I thought this was a joke image. But that's actually on the RT site... seems passive aggressive to me. People aren't that stupid, either they're desperate to spin some kind of positive headline or RT really hates the movie and wants to hit them with backhanded compliments. So weird, either way.

They need to try and at least pretend all is good and positive and good and positive stuff is on the horizon. Marketing spin 101. And I'm sure they put this tidbit out on purpose. The train is on the rails, going full steam ahead. Haven't you heard?

Actually the person who ought to make ep9 should be Ryan Coogler, the other hot Marvel director. Remember him?

And I thought I was being pessimistic with a 115m 4 day.

Well that's pretty strongly worded for sure. I believe it's going to make at least 2b. But to say there's no possible way it could make less? I can be pretty imaginative, and I can certainly imagine failure scenarios. So maybe not locked in the sense that less than 2b is impossible, but I believe it will get 2b. And I would be shocked if it falls short.

I would say so. Myself included. I definitely think 2b is still locked.

Might not effect it so much? We will see. I really don't think it will, this will be a big weekend for movies and lots of people will be out to see all kinds of things.

That's exactly how this should be viewed. Compared to last Monday its pretty damn good, and overall it should have a pretty good week. Something in the neighborhood of another 35m+ added Dom between Mon-Sun coming up.

This thing could still surprise.

I wouldn't count this out, no matter what the doom and gloom crowd here say. It can edge out TFA still, the OS numbers are overall fantastic. Better than TFA at a much faster rate. DP will not take that big of a chunk (frontloaded, lower BO than DP1), and Solo will do nothing to it in these markets. I'll admit it may come just under TFA, but it could just as easily go slightly over. It's hard to tell right now.

I think you could be right. I saw the movie last night, also saw DP1 on opening weekend. I like the movies just fine, but I got this sorta sickening feeling after seeing it and after the numbers we're getting that this is the exact problem. The audience is there, its established which is good. But it's not growing, the first one may have maxed it out.

It shouldn't, unless you're someone who thinks we're heading into a JL type situation. I happen to think it will come under worst-case projections because I don't believe the audience demand is there, regardless of how past SW movies perform. All movies in a series perform predictably, until they don't.

That's actually... incredibly awesome. And impressive. Some very long legs indeed.