SoLow Boxoffice - 14.1m Previews

On the high end, that’s in the vicinity of what the studio’s Marvel titles Thor: Ragnarok ($14.5M) and Iron Man 3 ($15.6M) grossed on their preview nights. Showtimes begin at 7PM in each time zone and once the west coast hits, there’s a possibility that Solo could surge past $15M.

Thursday night for both Ragnarok and Iron Man 3 respectively repped about 31% and 23% of their Fridays which came in at $46.4M and $68.8M. Ragnarok turned in a 3-day weekend of $122.7M while Iron Man 3 did $174.1M, so a big swing there with the latter launching summer during the first weekend of May five years ago.


It’s too soon to tell how Solo will leg out over four days as there are various factors in play but by comparison to the previous Star Wars 2016 spinoff pic Rogue One that film turned in $29M on a December Thursday before posting a Friday of $71M, and 3-day opening of $155M. Heading into the weekend projections for the Ron Howard-directed Star Wars spinoff ranged from as low as $130M over FSSM to as high as $170M. Disney currently holds the Memorial Day opening record with 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($139.4M). Solo arrives with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 69% fresh, which isn’t the lowest for a Star Wars movie (that belongs to The Phantom Menace at 55% Rotten), but it’s more a popcorn film than it is an overall critics-pleaser, so audiences could push its fortunes higher. And while Memorial Day is seen as the traditional kick-off to summer (it use to be at the box office long ago), the weather is partly cloudy and blase here in Los Angeles in the low 70s for the weekend (certainly not beach weather) and that could spike Solo‘s west coast sales.

Solo‘s Thursday night projection towers over other releases that launched over Memorial Day in recent years including The Hangover Part 2 ($10.4M), X-Men: Apocalypse ($8.2M), X-Men: Days of Future Past ($8.1M), Fast and Furious 6 ($6.5M).

Solo will play in 4,381 theaters tomorrow, including 3,300 3D locations, 400+ Imax screens, 600+ premium large format screens and 200+ D-Box locations.

Social Media monitor RelishMix reports that the buzz online is “mixed, with fans out-shouting the naysayers for a positive skew. Fans are sure it’ll be the next great Star Wars entry – and the minority, dubious moviegoers claim this particular tale looks off the mark. On the positive side, the film is touching certain nerves among fans. A Han Solo origin story is naturally of interest to hardcore Star Wars fans, particularly one that tells the story of how the Millennium Falcon became part of Solo’s life, how he met Chewbacca, etc. But also popular in discussion is the stylish-looking Lando and the host of new and strange characters. Ron Howard, who replaced the original directing team, also has the faith of most fans.”


While young Han Solo himself Alden Ehrenreich isn’t on social, Emilia Clarke is the film’s social star with 17.2M followers on her official Instagram. Ron Howard counts 3.5M across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram while Donald Glover has 2.7M Followers on his Childish Gambino Instagram and 1.4M on Facebook. Ever since Howard took the directing reigns over from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, he has been quite passionate about sharing posts from the set from Paul Bettany boarding the film as Dryden Vos to Lando’s closet of capes.
Solo: A Star Wars Story has a good social media universe according to RelishMix with 442.3M, an SMU that’s lighter then the series standards. Broken out that’s 162.1M Facebook Fans, 52.7M Facebook video views, 32.8M Twitter followers, 129.7M YouTube views and 65M Instagram followers. The overall SMU easily exceeds a typical action fantasy film of 194M. Solo’s viral rate of reposted videos of 18:1 is lighter than the genre’s 26:1. Some highlights: Glover’s Lando sketch earned 2.1M views on YouTube on the SNL channel. Check out Howard’s video from Cannes: