With a lot of issues during production that were all the talk combined with it being just six months since a fairly controversial film with The Last Jedi out, there may be some fatigue factoring into things with Star Wars going by the Han Solo numbers. The film is projected in the end to be the lowest ranking one in terms of box office, which is unfortunate in my mind as I want to see where the story goes. Studios really overloaded the month of May, which is frustrating as it feels like there’s not a lot left for the summer outside of two big pictures with Jurassic World and Ant-Man and the Wasp, though surely there’ll be some surprises in the mix. But this past month saw Avengers: Infinity War dominating box office numbers and wallets while the Deadpool sequel couldn’t match the first.
Solo for the three-day weekend ends at about $83 million and will likely push over the $100 million mark by the end of the four-day holiday in the US. Initial projections had it at nearly $140 million so there’s likely going to be a sizable re-think exploration of the gap period between the first two trilogies and what characters to work with – enough so that I fear for an Obi-wan movie because I want that.
The next film in the franchise is Episode IX and that won’t hit til Christmas 2019, so at least there’s a lot of breathing room until then. Solo is well-received among those that went as it got an A- CinemaScore from audiences.
Deadpool 2 took the second spot and had $42 million second weekend, which is a pretty good drop from its opening weekend while Avengers: Infinity War brought in another $17 million.
The next big film is Jurassic World on June 22nd so the top three films have a good bit of space to work with in building some additional numbers.
Next week sees the drama Adrift arriving in 2,900 screens while the comedy Action Point hits 2,000 screends. There’s also a smaller thriller with Upgrade landing in 1,400 screens.
