Q&As About 'Star Wars': Will Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker flop like Solo: A Star Wars Story?

On Quora, member Michael Justin asks:

Will Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker flop like Solo: A Star Wars Story?

My response:

Considering that most of the audience for the Skywalker Saga films is larger than the core of naysaying “Never Disney Star Wars” fan-group, I would say…”No.”

Solo: A Star Wars Story failed to perform well at the box office, not because of the success of a boycott led by The Last Jedi-basher clique or because it was a lousy Star Wars film, but rather by its behind-the-scenes drama, a lackadaisical marketing campaign, spectacularly bad scheduling, and perhaps even a mild case of franchise weariness.

Of all those factors, the most serious was Lucasfilm’s hiring and subsequent firing of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as directors of a Star Wars films. Reportedly, the creators of The LEGO Movie wanted to give Solo an Ocean’s 11 comedy-caper vibe - much to the dismay of screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan - and refused to give Lucasfilm enough “coverage” (different versions of the same shots) so that editors could give the movie a “look” that was consistent with the other films. Tensions between the co-directors and the studio ensued, and during a mid-shoot break during which Lucasfilm executives (including Kathleen Kennedy, Lawrence Kasdan, Allison Shearmur, Jonathan Kasdan, and Susan Towner) evaluated what had been filmed so far, Lord & Miller were fired and replaced by director Ron Howard, a former actor and Academy Award-winning director with long-standing ties to George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd. (Lord and Miller were compensated for this very public to-do with “executive producer” credits and some money for their troubles.)

The change in directors caused a daisy chain of production problems, starting with major reshoots and a change of schedule for both principal photography and post-production. Not only did Howard have to redo many of the scenes that had already been shot in order to earn - per Directors’ Guild rules - the directorial screen credit, but he also had to do the unfilmed portion of Solo.

© 2018 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 

Unfortunately for Howard and Lucasfilm, the change in schedule meant that the original actor who played crime boss Dryden Vos as an alien during the Lord & Miller era had done his scenes and was busy on another film when Howard came on board as Solo director. This meant that the role had to be recast, and thus Paul Bettany (a long-time Star Wars fan) was hired.

This necessitated a “do-over” on Dryden Vos’s design, which resulted in a less alien, more human-looking character design which was quicker and less expensive to do, but it still took time and money to achieve.

All of these issues had a cumulative effect on the movie’s budget; I don’t have the exact figures, but conservative estimates peg that Solo cost between $200 million to $320 million to make, including the overruns caused by the change in directors and the expenses of a hasty and almost non-existent advertising campaign. If Solo: A Star Wars were to break even - the least painful option for Lucasfilm and its corporate parent - the movie needed to earn at least $900 million, or nearly three dollars for each dollar spent making it.

The movie failed to reach this goal, earning "only" $390 million worldwide at the box office.

Unfortunately, Solo “bombed” because it was released in May of 2018 rather than the “new” Star Wars release month of December, too close on the heels of Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and up against other, better-marketed films, including one of the MCU Avengers movies. 

Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is not likely to flop at the box office, even though there are those toxic “Never Disney Star Wars” non-fans who would gleefully dance in the streets if it underperformed at the box office in December. There are many reasons why I believe The Rise of Skywalker will not follow in Solo’s cinematic footsteps, but the biggest one is that the “main Saga” films are more “Big Tentpole” movies with bigger audiences than the stand-alone A Star Wars Story Anthology films.