As of right now, it appears as if Solo: A Star Wars Story is going to become the lowest grossing instalment in the franchise to date and one Wall Street media analyst blames that not on franchise fatigue or a lack of interest in Han Solo but poor marketing on the part of Disney and Lucasfilm. As a result of that, the spinoff's final domestic gross could actually end up being as low as $200 million.
While Solo's box office failings "[have] occasioned some concern that audiences may be suffering from Star Wars fatigue," Doug Creutz, a veteran media analyst at Cowen, notes. "We think this is probably not the case, and that Solo’s biggest problem was an uncharacteristically (for Disney) poor marketing campaign." Interestingly, he adds that behind the scenes issues and the tight release window with Star Wars: The Last Jedi were less important factors than that marketing campaign.
The problem with the spinoff was that the teaser "only had about 10 seconds of screen time where Ehrenreich’s face was clearly in the picture — not, in our opinion, nearly enough" and, unlike Rogue One, it simply didn't do enough to establish Han as someone moviegoers would want to root for. It relied more on them knowing who the character is and watching the movie for that reason alone.
So, will Solo's failings have a negative impact on Star Wars Episode IX next year? It doesn't appear so because the analyst believes that the J.J. Abrams helmed release, "will do quite well at the box office, probably exceeding Last Jedi." What do you think the main issues with the spinoff movie were?
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