Who Benefits: Original filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were fired deep into production, would not be judged if they felt vindicated given Solo‘s uninspiring blandness and box office struggles. Further spacing out Star Wars film releases, expanding the scope of these standalone anthology features and cleaning up behind the scenes messes should all be points of emphasis moving forward. But I expect the studio to be taking note of what went wrong. ![]() Industry Implications: Lucasfilm isn’t losing too much sleep over Solo‘s box office faceplant as the studio is still moving forward with its ambitious Star Wars expansion plans. ![]() For a picture that cost a minimum of $250 million to make due to extensive re-shoots and $150 million to market, this is an outright failure. It’s $84 million opening was well below tracking estimates ($130 million to $150 million) and the film’s worldwide gross of $340 million as of this writing likely means it won’t even cross $400 million. Money: Despite landing among the five biggest-openers of 2018 so far, Solo is a massive financial disappointment and the first Star Wars film to ever lost money. For Paramount (PARA), A Quiet Place represents a ( much needed) modestly-budgeted new franchise, as a sequel is already in the works. Fresh and original creative concepts have proven to be massive crowd-pleasers that can finally edge their way into the highly-coveted prestige territory. Industry Implications: The horror genre has long been Hollywood’s most financially reliable genre, but with the critical and commercial success of last year’s Oscar-nominated Get Out and now A Quiet Place (not to mention It), studios are viewing this scary category in a new light. Money: A Quiet Place exceeded all tracking expectations when it opened in early April to north of $50 million and has legged it all the way to $326 million worldwide off a minuscule $17 million budget. WB also comes out ahead as it carries over its momentum from a healthy 2017. Who Benefits: Do I really need to spell this out for you? It’s Spielberg by a landslide.
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