Disney’s stock has dipped in the wake ofSolounderperforming at thebox officeover the weekend. The latestStar Warsoffering of the Disney era has had its fair share of problems and those problems continued to rear their ugly heads this weekend as the movie made $83.3 million over the three-day weekend and $101 million over the entire four-day Memorial Day weekend. As a result, shares of Disney stock have slipped.
According to CNBC, Disney shares fell 1 percent following thelackluster box office performanceofSolo: A Star Wars Story. Granted, lackluster is a relative term, as $101 million would be nothing to scoff at for most movies, but this is one of the biggest and most recognizable franchises of all time and Disney is the biggest studio in Hollywood by far. Considering that, prior to this, the lowest-grossing of the newStar Warsmovies on its opening weekend wasRogue One, which made $155 million in 2016, nearly double whatSolomanaged, the slight dip in share price is understandable.
Overall, Disney’s shares are down six percent for the year. The onlyStar Warsmovie to date that has had a worse opening weekend at the box office wasAttack of the Clones, which managed just $80 million back in 2002 following the not-so-great reception toThe Phantom Menace. Critically, the reception forSolohas been reasonably positive, as the movie currently sits at a 70 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience rating sits a little lower at just 62 percent. These are not numbers anyone wants when it comes to theStar Warsfranchise.
Solohad a notoriously rough road to theaters. Phil Lord and Chris Miller were hired to direct the movie originally and had shot almost all of it when Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy decided to fire them over creative differences. Ron Howard then came in and reshot 70 percent of the movie. While no exact figure has been provided byDisney, it’s been reported that this movie brought the production budget of the latestStar Warsstandalone to $250 million or more. And that’s before marketing costs. That makes the relatively ugly opening weekend numbers for the movie all the more painful.
Prior to the weekend, estimates hadSoloearningas much as $150 million domestically. Unfortunately, the movie has stumbled overseas as well, with its worldwide total currently sitting at just $168 million. Depending on how bad the week-to-week dip is, Disney could be on track to lose a big chunk of change here. All things considered, a one percent dip in stock price isn’t the end of the world, but this has proved that theStar Warsfranchise isn’t bulletproof and that Lucasfilm needs to do a little bit of course correcting behind the scenes, if they haven’t already, to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. This news comes to us courtesy ofCNBC.
