Friday grosses are in, and Solo: A Star Wars Story is falling shorter than anyone had expected.
On its opening day in America, Solo opened to a decent $35.6 million. For any other franchise this would be great news, but for a Star Wars film, its kind of disappointing given its recent track record.
Out of the recent Disney Star Wars films, this puts it severely behind the other three; but the much likely comparison is Rogue One – the first of the two Star Wars spin-offs. Rogue One opened with $71.1 million on its opening day back in December 2016. Since competition is more fierce in summer, than the prequels are better for comparisons sake.
The three Star Wars prequels which opened in 1999, 2002 and 2005 respectively, all opened before Friday, leaving comparisons a little tricky. However, Solo is looking more in line with Attack of the Clones when it opened with $30.1 million on a Thursday back in 2002. That film finished with a three-day weekend of $80 million, putting Solo in the same ballpark.
For a Memorial Day weekend comparison, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End opened with $42.9 million back in 2007.
If it follows Attack of the Clones’ pattern, it should finish with an opening weekend total of around $88 million, putting this the first Star Wars film not to open with more than $100 million for its three-day opening weekend since 2002. However, all the Star Wars prequels had an uptick on Saturday grosses, the same did not follow with the Disney Star Wars films since they opened with mega numbers. If Solo has an slight uptick on Saturday grosses, than it can reach around $98 million.
For the three-day weekend we are anticipating Solo anywhere from $88-$98 million. My best bet is about $92 million, a massive downgrade from my $120 million three-day prediction from past Monday. Solo is expected to gross over $100 million for the four-day total.
Source: Box Office Mojo
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