“Solo: A Star Wars Story” hit theaters five weeks ago come this weekend, and it hasn’t been a good time for Lucasfilm ever since. “Solo: A Star Wars” story is about to cross $350 million worldwide and $200 million domestically, but these are extremely disappointing numbers compared to any “Star Wars” film of the Disney era. If ‘Solo’ inches towards, say $400 million worldwide, that’s still down a massive 62% from the global haul of ‘Rogue One.’
READ MORE: Lucasfilm’s Obi-Wan Future Is Unclear; ‘Mos Eisley’ Spin-Off Movie Rumors & More
Worse, this week Collider reported that Lucasfilm, worried about how ‘Solo’ essentially flopped, were pausing development of their spinoff movies, namely Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi (causing Internet hysteria and reading comprehension problems that labeled the spin-offs outright canceled).
Lucasfilm rarely ever bothers to address, refute or even acknowledge the many “Star Wars” rumors that hit every few months, but the company decided to let ABC News know that the initial report was “inaccurate.” How so? The company didn’t say.
READ MORE: ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ & The Inherent Problem With Prequels
But we may have our answers. The Hollywood Reporter has spoken to sources near the Lucasfilm camp and sheds some light on where the company’s head is at post-‘Solo’ disappointment. And it’s one that makes a lot of sense given the circumstances.
“They haven’t slowed down development,” a source with knowledge of Lucasfilm’s thinking told the trade, “but they are licking their wounds.”
READ MORE: 5 Reasons ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Couldn’t Make The Jump To Hyperspace
Of course, they are. Any company that’s made a billion dollars each time at bat is going to crawl back and rethink things when your latest movie has made a fraction of the previous film’s grosses.
“It doesn’t mean those spinoffs don’t happen,” another insider said of ‘Solo’s underperformance globally. “It just means they’re trying to figure out how to make, and market, them differently.”
Make them differently is key, and it’s something I’ve been stressing on Twitter. Spin-offs are possible, but the spoon-feeding, fill-in-every-blank of backstory storytelling isn’t great, and audiences essentially rejected it.
Perhaps an Obi Wan, and maybe to a lesser degree Boba Fett, film can STILL be made. But this poor “fill in every character blank” approach of storytelling absolutely sucks and audiences rejected. The hope is they’re keeping the ideas, but throwing out the way the stories are told https://t.co/uvx6LafcIY
— The Playlist (@ThePlaylistNews) June 21, 2018
“In light of the reaction to ‘Last Jedi’ and the performance of Solo, they are now just going to look at what’s coming in and seeing how good it is, before dating anything,” another insider. “It’s all pretty understandable.”
THR also says the Boba Fett spin-off is still very much in development with Simon Kinberg, king of the “X-Men” universe, and “Logan” director James Mangold writing the script. Kinberg was originally developing the project way back when Josh Trank was still on the film as a director. Despite being known as the Kevin Feige of the “X-Men” universe, he has a long-standing relationship with Lucasfilm and was instrumental in creating the characters and story of “Star Wars Rebels” along with Dave Filoni and other members of the “Star Wars” story group.
The longterm plan is for Mangold to direct the “Boba Fett” film, but it could be several years until we see it given that his next film, “Ford Vs. Ferrari” with Christian Bale and Matt Damon, is already prepping to shoot next (in fact, it’s also just received a June 28, 2019 release date, so you’re looking at 2020 at the earliest, and more likely 2021 as these movies generally take a year to shoot and edit and he needs time for a breather and pre-production at the very least).
However, the highlight line of the THR piece says in the wake of ‘Solo,’ the Boba Fett film could be “reconfigured” and potentially scaled down. Here’s the exact graph:
The thinking is that if Han Solo, one of the most iconic characters in the Star Wars universe, couldn’t sustain a big-budget origin feature, then any Fett movie would have to be scaled down, since though the character is popular, he’s certainly less well-known to most moviegoers than the Corellian smuggler.
This likely means a rethink to the story that’s already in development and with that, a lower budget.
The only official projects in development at Lucasfilm currently are “Star Wars: Episode IX“, a new series from the makers of “Game Of Thrones” and a new trilogy from Rian Johnson unconnected from the current trilogy that features Rey, Poe and Finn.
“In light of the reaction to ‘Last Jedi’ and the performance of Solo, they are now just going to look at what’s coming in and seeing how good it is, before dating anything,” says one insider. “It’s all pretty understandable.” Indeed. Unless you’re Marvel with an unimpeachable track record, the trend of dating out films several years in advance might recede over the next few months.
