Weekend Estimates: Solo Opens Lower than Expected with $101 million, Still Dominates Competition

May 27, 2018

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story opened with an estimated $83 million / $101 million over the three-day / four-day weekend. It had the best Memorial Day long weekend since 2014, when X-Men: Days of Future Past opened with $111 million over four days. In fact, this result is the fourth best Memorial Day long weekend opening in the past decade. That said, it was much lower than expected and some are calling it a box office failure. That’s complicated. The film was originally going to cost $150 million to make, making it the cheapest installment in the new Star Wars franchise. However, they reportedly had to reshoot 70% of the movie, which lifted the price to $250 million. The box office needed to break even during the film’s initial push into the home market rose from about $500 million to $650 million. And with an initial international debut of $65.0 million in 54 markets, this film is just not going to get there. The unending talk of behind-the-scenes trouble seems to have hurt the film’s box office chances and even its good reviews and its A minus from CinemaScore won’t be enough to turn things around. That said, it is far from a complete disaster and the franchise will continue, although it might be wise for Disney to not release so many installments in the franchise so quickly. Three in 18 months is a bit too much. This isn’t the MCU.

Deadpool 2 fell 66% to $42.7 million / $53.5 million over the weekend for a total of $218.2 million after eleven days of release. Granted, this is a sharper drop-off than anticipated, but the film has already made enough money domestically to cover its entire $110 million production budget. If you add in its international numbers, it might break even by the end of the month.

Infinity War took $16.5 million / $20.1 million over the weekend, pushing its domestic total to $625 million. It is on pace to reach $2 billion worldwide, but it will be close.

Book Club was the only sophomore film to hold on well, earning $9.45 million / $11.8 million over the weekend for a total of $31 million after two weeks of release. It has a reasonable shot at $50 million domestically, making it a solid midlevel hit.

The biggest limited release so far is How Long Will I Love U, which earned an estimated $210,000 in 23 theaters over the three-day weekend. That’s very impressive for a Chinese film. The reviews are mixed, but this opening will encourage a few theater owners to book the film in the coming weeks.

- Solo: A Star Wars Story Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Avengers: Infinity War, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Deadpool 2, Book Club, How Long Will I Love U, Star Wars, Marvel Cinematic Universe