‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’
Solo: A Star Wars Story may struggle to pass the $248 million opening weekend of The Force Awakens, and maybe (if things go south) the $220m debut frame of The Last Jedi. If it had cost less (I have no idea how much reshoots added to the budget, but I can’t imagine they intended to make a $250m+ Han Solo prequel) or performed better overseas (that’s the real trouble spot), this would be a different conversation. Plenty of big movies earned over/under $200m and went on to do $550m-$800m worldwide business. But Solo isn’t Spectre, Pirates 5 or Fast and Furious 6.
It is ironic that the first failure of the new Star Wars era is the one with a white guy in the starring role. Moreover, Solo: A Star Wars Story tanked harder overseas than in North America. We are comedically past the point where anyone should still believe the conventional wisdom about minority-led movies or female-led movies struggling overseas. While I’m not going to argue that overseas audiences are drawn to big movies starring women and minorities more than standard white guy “he’s the special” hero’s journeys, they sure don’t seem to find them repelling either.
Tomb Raider made $215 million overseas versus $56m domestic. Moonlight made more overseas than in North America. Wonder Woman made $409 million overseas, while Black Panther made $646m in foreign grosses, more than any other solo superhero flick save for Iron Man 3 ($805m) and (if it counts) Captain America: Civil War ($745m). Pixar’s Coco earned $805m worldwide, including a record $189m in China. Pixar hasn’t had a non-sequel hit starring a white guy since the 2009 masterpiece Up. It’s no accident that Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) is getting the superhero spotlight in The Incredibles 2.
While we claimed overseas resistance to big movies headlined by women and minorities, Dwayne Johnson has become a big-scale movie stars and the Johnson/Kevin Hart Jumanji sequel topped $950 million worldwide. Rampage, starring Johnson and Naomi Harris, earned $413m worldwide while Michael Fassbender’s Assassin’s Creed earned $240m. We pretended that China had issues with movies starring minorities or women, yet the last two Fast and Furious series topped $392m a pop. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and xXx: Return of Xander Cage topped $160m in China. Black Panther and John Boyega’s Pacific Rim: Uprising snagged $60m+ debuts.
Pacific Rim: Uprising wasn’t a hit ($288 million on a $150m budget), but the Universal/Comcast Corp. release is an interesting example. It exists because Pacific Rim earned $113m in China, and it was bioengineered to flourish in China, to the point of killing off a popular Japanese supporting character so that the Chinese female lead could flourish. And yet, Pacific Rim: Uprising’s leading man isn’t Scott Eastwood, but rather John Boyega. It wasn’t a hit, partially because it only earned $59m in North America, but it still snagged a $63.5m opening and $99m cume in China.
Meanwhile, Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned $2 billion worldwide with Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in the leading roles, while Rogue One (with Felicity Jones leading a crew of multicultural Rebels) topped $1b. Questionable backlash notwithstanding, The Last Jedi, which starring Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, Carrie Fisher, John Boyega Kelly Marie Tran and Laura Dern among others, earned $1.33b worldwide. It was only the Alden Ehrenreich-starring hero’s journey origin story, featuring Emilia Clarke as a “strong/independent” love interest, Woody Harrelson as the cynical mentor and Donald Glover as the cooler-than-you black sidekick, which tanked.
Did Solo: A Star Wars Story disappoint because it had a white male lead? Would that it were so simple! You can throw a whole bunch of recent “starring a white male lead” blockbuster releases at me without even dipping into comic book superheroes, like The Revenant, Dunkirk, Kong: Skull Island and Ready Player One. I will then offer Pan, Terminator Genisys and Exodus. Walt Disney has the year’s biggest domestic hit in Black Panther and the year’s biggest global flop in A Wrinkle in Time, both were films helmed by black directors and featuring majority-minority casts.
The last three Star Wars movies were huge partly because they were event movies for moviegoers not used to seeing themselves in lead roles as Jedi Knights and Rebel leaders. Force Awakens’s post-debut legs (and it remains the second-leggiest $100m+ Friday opener ever behind Wonder Woman) were partially fueled by its “surprise” reveal of Rey as the Jedi hero, which was hidden from the marketing and treated as a surprise. Force Awakens was an event movie, especially for those who yearned to see themselves as the main heroes in that galaxy far, far away.
I enjoyed Ron Howard’s Solo as an unassuming B-movie western/Indiana Jones riff. But unlike the last three Star Wars movies, it wasn’t an event for any demographics not already used to seeing themselves in the cockpit. It was Star Wars redone as a kind of “generic blockbuster: the movie” not unlike King Arthur: Legend of the Sword or John Carter. It looked, on the outside, like the kind of movie Disney’s rivals tend to make (Universal’s The Mummy reboot, Lionsgate’s upcoming Robin Hood reboot, etc.) to mimic the success of the MCU book superhero movies.
A big-budget action fantasy movie is no longer a default event movie, Jupiter Ascending or Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets can confirm. Since folks now stay home unless there is something they specifically want to see, a movie that isn’t an event is DOA. Due to its inessentiality to the Star Wars mythos and its throwback Mad Libs template (a cocky young white kid goes on an adventure and becomes the iconic character we know and love), Solo just wasn’t an event in the way that Last Jedi, Black Panther and Wonder Woman were.
Those allegedly boycotting Star Wars over The Last Jedi ironically stayed away from a chapter more suited to their interests. I am hesitant to give the vocal minority who didn’t just dislike The Last Jedi (that’s allowed) but viewed it as SJW propaganda (that’s evil) too much credit. To the extent that it had any effect, you had some folks ignoring Solo either because they loved The Last Jedi or because they hated The Last Jedi. I never thought a Han Solo prequel was a good idea, but even I didn’t see this perfect storm coming.
Not every film starring a young white male lead is doomed to struggle overseas (Kingsman: The Secret Service). Not every female-led or minority-centric biggie is going to kick butt here (Pacific Rim: Uprising) and abroad (Ghost in the Shell). Yet, there is enough evidence to suggest that it doesn’t hurt to have your movie centered on a racial minority or a woman (of any color). The key will still be making movies, of all sizes, that are demographically-specific event movies. It’s why It and Girls Trip were events, but King Arthur and The Mummy were not.
A King Arthur movie starring Chiwetel Ejiofor or Diego Luna would be an event in a way that a Charlie Hunnam King Arthur movie was not. Ditto a Leia Organa movie versus a Han Solo movie. We’ll see if this affects the Boba Fett movie, which may be the first Star Wars movie with a minority leading man. Even that alleged Obi-Wan Kenobi movie will have an actor (Ewan McGregor) who fans would like to see reprise the role. Yes, a Glover-as-Lando flick could be a demographically-specific event movie in a way that Solo was not.
In the end, Solo had little to offer that was fresh and had little to sell beyond being a movie that happened to be part of the Star Wars universe. But in 2018, an event movie featuring a generic white guy in the lead is that much less of an event movie, and merely being a big-budget fantasy spectacle isn’t enough. Giving certain demographics, a still too rare opportunity to root for heroes that look like them can help create demographically-specific event movies. Thus, from a certain point of view, white male movie stars may indeed be box office poison.
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
