Tag: disney

My prediction for Solo.

I think that, in a couple of years, they’re going to do a sequel for Solo after all, box office disaster or not. Why? Because it’s not a bad movie. Yeah, the robot was sometimes annoying — but, heck, droids are slaves in the Star Wars universe and I’ve been known to fulminate about that a little when I’ve had enough drinks in me. But the rest of it? …I genuinely liked it. It was a good heist film. Woody Harrelson in particular has nothing to be ashamed of.

And I suspect that in a couple of years there’s going to be enough of a slow burn of renewed interest that Disney will green-light a sequel. Particularly because of that one cameo. That one cameo offers the Extended Universe fans a chance to get some of their favorite stuff up on the big screen after all.  And if there’s anything that the Mouse is good at, it’s getting its money back on an investment. They’ll want to get it back on this one, too.

But that’s just my admittedly not juiced-in opinion, so I guess we’ll see.

Moe Lane

Oof: Solo opens so low*.

103 million for the weekend, which is pretty damned bad when compared to expectations and probably budget.  It’s usually a safe enough bet to count on Disney’s ability to make the sharp curve in time, but not this weekend; I was expecting $130 million.  Clearly, I was wrong. Good thing I don’t handicap movies for a living, huh?

Shame, though: Solo wasn’t bad, for what it was. And it may still generate legs and a sequel, because of [SPOILERS].  But there’s apparently a limit to how much Star Wars can be stuffed into a movie schedule.

Moe Lane

PS: I mistrust narratives.

*Line cheerfully stolen from Forbes.

Disney movie advance ticket sales surpasses other Disney movie but not other other Disney movie.

Disney must find all of this entertaining: “Tickets for Solo: A Star Wars Story went on sale Thursday night and the first 24 hours of presales have already doubled Marvel’s megahit Black Panther, according to Fandango. Yet Solo can’t top first-day presales for Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War, which remains the fastest-selling film of the year in these early metrics.” Especially since ‘megahit’ is unlikely to be applied to Solo, even if it makes more money than Rogue One did.

Why? Ah.  Well, how do I put this tactfully? There are societal expectations for Star Wars movies. Making over a billion dollars per movie isn’t exceeding them; it’s the bare minimum for fulfilling them.  This doesn’t bother Disney, because while they do like making movies (if they didn’t, they’d never make good ones) they really do like making movies that bring in the cash.  Which is probably what they’re going to do with Solo.

Disney subsidiary compliments other Disney subsidiary over breaking record.

I’m not going to link to that ridiculous piece of marketing agitprop; suffice it to say that LucasFilms* sent a congratulatory note to Marvel Studios over Infinity War beating The Force Awakens for domestic gross.  As both are actually owned by, you, know, Disney and everything this is probably not exactly a spontaneous, gracious gesture. It’s certainly not really evocative of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg giving golf claps to each other. Continue reading Disney subsidiary compliments other Disney subsidiary over breaking record.

Infinity War’s $258 million opening embarrassingly proves me wrong.

So, hey, I know nothing about predicting box office: “Infinity War posted the biggest Saturday and Sunday ever at the North American box office on its way to record-shattering $258 million weekend, according to final numbers. (That’s up from Sunday’s estimated $250 million.).”  As that first link shows, I was tentatively going ‘well, $220 million wouldn’t be too unusual.’  I absolutely did not think that it would hit $250 million, let along $258 million.

Also: dagnabbit, I absolutely should have done what other people did and made it a one-two double feature with Black Panther  (from second link): “Moviegoers created their own Black Panther–Infinity War double feature over the weekend. While most films got pushed to the side by Infinity War, Black Panther moved back up the chart in its 11th weekend from No. 8 to No. 5, something Disney didn’t even anticipate.” Why didn’t I think of that? — But I take some comfort in realizing that neither did Marvel/Disney. It’s nice to know that it wasn’t immediately obvious. I guess.

Moe Lane

Kevin Feige: Naaaah, no Fantastic Four in the MCU any time soon. Nope. Unh-uhh.

Not a chance of it happening.  Swamp gas reflecting off of Venus.  Fer sure. Kevin Feige is absolutely saying that:

“No, because any of that deal would take a while to get going and years from whenever and if ever it happens. So, certainly it won’t impact the five movies we’ve announced, and it probably wouldn’t impact anything for a handful of years after that. Because really, we’re not thinking about that. We’re thinking of delivering on what we promised. Any movie, especially for any characters we don’t have the rights to yet until someone tells us we do, would be even further after that.”

Just like Avi Arad was pooh-poohing any thought of Spider-Man playing second fiddle in the MCU: Continue reading Kevin Feige: Naaaah, no Fantastic Four in the MCU any time soon. Nope. Unh-uhh.