'Solo' Poised To Have Another Disappointing Weekend At The Box Office

Lucasfilm enters this weekend with something it hasn’t felt in a long time – uncertainty. Since Disney purchased the studio, “Star Wars” has been bulletproof at the box office. The studio’s biggest risk to date was 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and that film did over a billion dollars globally. But that all changed last weekend, when “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was released and suddenly, we started to see that perhaps Lucasfilm wasn’t invincible, after all.

Now, we are entering the second weekend for ‘Solo,’ and box office predictions are varied. Were there outstanding circumstances that led to an unusually low debut for the film over Memorial Day weekend? Will ‘Solo’ have a minimal drop week-to-week, showing that maybe people just didn’t rush out to the theaters last weekend? Or maybe, just maybe, ‘Solo’ will go down as the first flop under the new Disney ownership for Lucasfilm?

READ MORE: ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Crashes At The Box Office; Barely Hits $100 Million With 4-Day Figures

Of course, “flop” is a relative term. We’re not insinuating that ‘Solo’ will do historically awful at the box office. Instead, we mean that compared to previous “Star Wars” films, and in terms of profitability, ‘Solo’ has the potential to be a huge disappointment.

So, where does ‘Solo’ end up at the end of this weekend? Reports vary from incredibly optimistic to dismal. Variety is claiming that the film will still make $50-$60 million this weekend. That would be an incredible hold, to say the least. However, that is very unlikely. Then you have Forbes saying that the film could see a decent hold, scoring another $41 million this weekend. Deadline, on the other hand, believes that what’s more likely is that ‘Solo’ will bring in a weekend total in the low-30s. And early estimates from THR show that the number might actually go lower than that, in the $25-$27 million range. Ouch.

Unfortunately for ‘Solo,’ the buzz surrounding the film after last weekend was how poorly it did at the box office. That’s not the type of discussion Disney and Lucasfilm were hoping for, at all. And with that being said, there’s the definite chance that “Deadpool 2,” in its third frame, could beat ‘Solo’ this weekend. That would be nothing short of embarrassing for Disney.

READ MORE: Disney Exec Blames ‘Avengers’ And ‘Deadpool 2’ For Dismal ‘Solo’ Box Office

As far as the box office totals for ‘Solo’ by the end of its run, analysts believe that Disney is looking at a domestic number under $250 million (for comparison’s sake, ‘The Force Awakens’ made $249 million in its opening weekend) and a worldwide number under $500 million. That worldwide total would make ‘Solo’ the worst performing “Star Wars” film since ‘Return of the Jedi’ in 1983. Keep in mind that the “Original Trilogy” didn’t have the chance to benefit from the booming international market of 2018.

As always, come back Sunday when we post our box office breakdown to see where ‘Solo’ ends up.