 |
| Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) |
Read all the reasons the “Solo: A Star Wars Story” movie will bomb at the big office.
A new trailer for the Star Wars prequel dropped over the weekend and it looks promising. But it’s destined to fail. The Han Solo prequel will go down in history as the biggest box office bomb in Star Wars history. Here are all the terrifying reasons Disney will regret making this movie.
1. No One Cares About Han Solo’s Past
 |
| Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) Han Solo (Harrison Ford) |
No one is asking for a Han Solo prequel and that’s a red flag. Part of the appeal of bringing back beloved characters is telling new stories. Han Solo is an answer to a question no one asked.
It’s like when “Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd” came out. Did anyone really wonder what those two were like in high school? No. Plus the fart jokes were lame.
On the other hand, a Lando prequel would be pretty good. We never learn much about him from the movies. What changed him from a swindler and a gambler to a leader of a city? A Leia prequel would be dynamite and would help explain how a Princess got so deep into the Rebellion.
Other than the question about Solo’s cryptic comment about his famous “Kessel Run” no one asked for Solo’s backstory.
2. Alden Ehrenreich is “Not Good Enough”
 |
| Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) |
When your lead actor is struggling to act it’s a red flag. Alden Caleb Ehrenreich is considered a good actor but this movie was way out of his wheelhouse. He started in Francis Ford Coppola’s independent film “Tetro” (2009)’s but is best known for playing Hobie Doyle in “Hail, Caesar! (2016). He’s not an Oscar winner by any stretch of the imagination but he did get a bunch of “Best Supporting Actor” nominations from critics associations like the Chicago Film Critics Association for the role.
So it’s a surprise there are reports that the studio was very concerned with his acting in the film. So much so that they hired an acting coach for him. Acting coaches aren’t unusual but hiring one this late in the production is. Reportedly he was struggling with his “impression” of Harrison Ford.
Just thinking about him doing an impression of young Harrison Ford is chilling. According to one anonymous insider, it’s a real challenge. “Trying to mimic Harrison Ford is really tough,” the source said. “Lucasfilm wanted something very specific: copying someone else. Alden’s not a bad actor – just not good enough.” The acting coach reportedly made a big difference saying he became more relaxed and confident. Still, it’s a red flag when the lead is struggling.
Han Solo isn’t an original character. “Loveable rogues” are a dime-a-dozen. From Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in X-Men it’s not hard to find them.
What made Han Solo iconic is Harrison Ford. He knows the character so well that he was able to adlib the perfect response to Princess Leia’s “I love you”: “I know.” That kind of in-depth knowledge of the character is hard to find. Ehrenreich doesn’t have it and that’s a big deal. We all know Han Solo and if he’s not played correctly the movie will face a huge backlash.
3. The Old Directors Were Fired At the Last Minute
When the directors are fired just weeks before filming ends it’s a red flag. The creative duo of Phil A. Lord and Christopher Robert Miller have led to huge success. Miller and Lord have racked up huge wins for writing and directing hits like “The Lego Movie” (2014), as well as directing the live-action comedy film “21 Jump Street” (2012) and its sequel. But they reportedly struggled to scale up to a Star Wars film.
The pair was used to an improvisational style and it frustrated the studio that the tightly written script was being ignored or replaced by the directors.The rumor is they were trying to rework it into a slapstick comedy and ignore the drama and scale of other Star Wars films. So What’s the big deal? Directors don’t always work off scripts. Who cares?
Because this script wasn’t done by any old screenwriter. This script is co-written by the legendary Lawrence Kasdan. The 69-year old co-wrote “The Empire Strikes Back”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Return of the Jedi”, and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. The man is a legend in the industry. One concept artist said he thought the script is amazing. The idea that a couple of 45-year old young directors think they know more than him is laughable.
A movie that would go through all the stages of production and filming before deciding to get rid of the directors shows a huge lack of understanding. A movie that starts out with a lack of confidence will struggle.
4. The Old Directors Couldn’t Get the Shots
Having your directors unprepared is a red flag. Lord and Miller took forever to shoot anything. They reportedly took an average of 30 to 40 shots for any given scene. the pair was unsure of what they wanted and would ask for them to roll again for a delivery “different” from the last.
This left the crew frustrated and exhausted from the hours on set. “Phil and Chris are good directors, but they weren’t prepared for Star Wars,” says our source. “After the 25th take, the actors are looking at each other like, ‘This is getting weird.’ [Lord and Miller] seemed a bit out of control. They definitely felt the pressure; with one of these movies, there are so many people on top of you all the time. The first assistant director was really experienced and had to step in to help them direct a lot of scenes.” On top of that producer, Kathleen Kennedy was frustrated that out of 30 shots they never got the shots the studio wanted to allow flexibility in editing.
After the studio got sick of them wasting money they fired them and brought veteran director Ron Howard to save the film.
Unfortunately, this means a ton of time and money was wasted. That’s going to be reflected in the end result.
5. Most of the Movie was Reshot
When you have a ton of reshoots it’s a red flag. Reshoots are troubling but normal in movies, but it sounds like Solo has a ton of reshoots and even more of a red flag.
After Lord and Miller were canned Ron Howard was hired to get the film back on track. the cast and crew have been enthusiastic about the change. According to sources at StarWarsNews.Net the studio has opted to have Ron Howard reshoot 80% of the movie. While EW suggested the footage shot by Lord and Miller was “mostly usable” they reportedly changed their minds.
Since they didn’t have access to the full sets anymore they used pieces of the set and green screen to recreate the sets. We don’t know if any of those scenes are in the trailers but that’s troubling. It could look fine or it could look like the rooftop scene from “The Room”.
Reshoots can work like in “Rogue One” but there are plenty of examples of reshoots ruining movies. The most recent example was Superman’s hilarious CGI mustache in “Justice League”.
6. It’s Just Another Example of “Star Wars” Lack of Diversity
The second standalone film is focused on another white dude and that’s a red flag. How many stories about cool white men can “Star Wars” make?
The original trilogy had very few strong female characters and even fewer minorities. “Force Awakens” broke ground with a black lead and a woman. “Rogue One” focused on a female leader and her crew of ethnically diverse buddies. “The Last Jedi” gave Rey, Leia and other women more prominent roles and the first Asian main character in the films.
What does Solo add? Lando. That’s pretty much it. Possibly a strong female but it’s hard to tell from the marketing.
Does it matter? Theater owners sure think so. Recently John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theatre Owners, told Variety they’ve been asking for more diversity in casting of movies “for a long time”. “We want these movies to set a precedent and not be one-offs that people forget about,” Fithian said. “We’d like to see this more and more and more. There should be a Latino superhero movie or an Asian superhero movie. The more you have different types of people in these movies, the more you appeal to different types of audiences.”.
Instead of moving forward this movie is a Kessel run backward in diversity.
7. Darth Vader Has a Pointless Cameo
Darth Vader is a great character but his cameo would be a big red flag. There are reports that an actor filmed several scenes dressed as Darth Vader for Ron Howard’s reshoots.
His appearance in Solo would make no sense. Han and Vader never met in the original trilogy so it wouldn’t make sense that he’d appear in the prequel. Do you think he wouldn’t remember a tall guy dressed in black with a skull mask?
If he doesn’t meet Solo that only leaves two possibilities. One he meets a minor character which would be underwhelming. Second, he’s just in the background playing the banjo or some nonsense.
The villainous dark Sith Lord Darth Vader was a huge villain in the original trilogy and he made a brief appearance in the prequels. The Force Awakens originally had a scene where Rey watches the lightsaber battle between Luke and Vader. Rogue One had a popular cameo with him attacking the rebels as they flee the empire. Ever since then fans have been hoping he’d show up again but not like this.
8. Disney Expects the Movie to Bomb
Disney is bracing itself for another Star Wars movie backlash and that’s a red flag. This Is a bad time for a Star Wars movie to flop. The studio is still reeling from the fan backlash from “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”.
One anonymous source told ScreenGeek “Disney is bracing themselves for the Han Solo movie to bomb. They were worried about it before all The Last Jedi controversy, but now they’re essentially writing Solo off. The lead actor, Alden Ehrenreich, can’t act, and they had a dialogue coach on hand for all of his scenes. On top of that, the script is unworkable. It’s going to be a car crash.”
Everyone involved in the movie has a bad feeling about it it’s a good sign the movie is trash.
9. Solo Opens After “Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War”
This movie is sandwiched between a couple of massive blockbusters and that’s a red flag. “Solo: A Star Wars Story” opens May 25, 2018. That seemed like a safe bet since Star Wars has always been a May tradition (“May the Fourth Be With You”).
Unfortunately, it opens a few weeks after “Avengers: Infinity War” on April 27, 2018. Why is that bad? Because the movie is already the top-selling film in pre-release sales. It’s expected to be the biggest move of the year and if Black Panther is any indication will probably be the number one movie for several weeks in a row.
That means Disney will have competing franchises at the box office. More importantly, if Avengers 3 is as good as people hope Solo will have a hard time cracking number one in its opening weekend.
That means it’ll start out of the gate at number two. Most movies would love to be in the top five. But this movie isn’t like most movies. Anything outside of number one is a disaster for a Star Wars movie.
According to Box Office Mojo, almost every Star Wars movie since 1977 has opened at number one with the exception of “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones”. Which makes sense since Episode I was terrible and people were bracing themselves for the next installment. A movie like Solo needs room to find an audience and it doesn’t have much wiggle room there.
Plus, Deadpool 2 opens the week before on May 18, 2018. The early buzz is not good for the Deadpool sequel, but if it does half as well as the first movie it’ll shoot Solo first.
10. The Budget is Huge
The budget is huge and getting bigger with every reshoot that’s a huge red flag the movie is out of control.
LucasFilm and Disney haven’t released the budget for Solo but it’s rumored to be a massive $400 million and getting bigger with every reshoot. The usual budget for a movie of this size is between $120 million $150 million. By comparison “The Force Awakens” had a reported budget of $200 million. If the Han Solo prequel film started close to that it just got a massive cost increase. According to sources at StarWarsNews.Net the studio has opted to have Ron Howard reshoot 80% of the movie. While EW suggested the footage shot by Lord and Miller was “mostly usable” they apparently changed their minds.
Howard is using various techniques to keep the costs down but it’s still expensive once you consider scheduling and negotiating contracts with the actors to return and reshoot scenes. Reportedly this doubled the budget. This puts huge pressure on the movie. Why? Look at Warner Bro.s latest blockbuster problem.
Justice League cost the studio a record $300 million in production costs and an estimated $150 million for global marketing. The movie made a seemingly impressive $655,953,446 worldwide. But according to Rob Cain at Forbes Warner Bros probably lost $50 million on the movie even after you add in marketing and home video.
This movie is like a runaway freight train and it’s going to crush Disney and everyone in its path.
If Solo underperforms it’ll sink the entire franchise and we’ll never get that Jar Jar Binks prequel. I wouldn’t want it but I’m sure some fans would watch it. My kids like him.
From a character no one wants to know more about to a production filled with mistakes and regrets the Han Solo movie is doomed to fail. I have a bad feeling about this…
Do you think the Han Solo prequel will bomb or be a hit?
Note: Some links may lead to an approved affiliate and small proceeds from the sale go to support the blog. Thank you!
If you enjoyed this, then please use the buttons below to tell your friends about this post! Follow us! Email | RSS | Twitter | Facebook
