An industry analyst tells the far-left Hollywood Reporter that Solo could lose more than $80 million. Yeah, right. Not for a second do I believe the loss will be that low, but that is the headline.
Actually, that is not the headline. The Hollywood Reporter went with a “$50 million” headline because, you know, that’s what Disney would want them to do.
Just more proof that establishment entertainment outlets like the Hollywood Reporter (and Variety, Entertainment Weekly, Deadline, countless fanboy blogs, etc.) are not about journalism or truth. Each exists to curry favor with and access to Studio Power, not to speak truth to it.
This is called spin, y’all, and a $50 million loss makes everyone shrug. My guess is that the loss could reach $150 million to $200 million-plus. Unlike the media, however, I am going to show you my math.
Solo’s reported budget (production and marketing) is $400 million, but it is probably higher. By the time all the costs were added to Last Jedi, the tally equaled $578 million. We are told Solo is the most expensive Star Wars movie yet made, but let’s be generous and go with $500 million.
Solo’s estimated worldwide theatrical gross is $400 million.
Solo will make money on home video, but not as much as Rogue One, which only grossed $80 million, and that is not pure profit. There are advertising, distribution, and manufacturing costs. Let’s be generous and say Solo will gross $60 million on home video and net $35 million.
The theaters generally pocket 50 to 55 percent of the box office revenue, so Disney will pocket about $200 million in net theater revenue; add the $35 million in home video revenue, and you come up with $235 million.
When you subtract that $235 million from a production budget that probably touches $500 million… Hey, I may have gone to public schools, but that ain’t no $50 million loss.
Sadly, this is the kind of fuzzy math we should expect from the same Hollywood Reporter currently engaged in a cover-up of the intense, grassroots fan revolt against Star Wars executive producer Kathleen Kennedy and her obnoxious decision to bend the Star Wars universe to conform to her joyless identity politics.
After all, this is the same Hollywood Reporter determined to delude itself into believing something called “Star Wars Fatigue” killed Solo, even after Avengers: Infinity War broke box office records just nine weeks after Black Panther‘s release.
The overall point I am trying to make here is that the trades (as the establishment entertainment media are known) are nothing less than an extension of the studios’ marketing and spin team, which means the trades lie and cover up.
Need another example?
Because everyone is pointing and laughing at a dog refusing to hunt named Star Wars Fatigue, here is the latest lame excuse: Even as its very own commenters fill the Deadline site with complaints about the divisive politics ladled onto Star Wars, rather than publish even a single article reporting on and acknowledging those complaints, Deadline actually — l.m.a.o. — published this:
[Veteran media analyst Doug] Creutz pointed to the first teaser for Rogue One, which came out 247 days before the movie. (But who’s counting? Creutz, apparently.) “The first 35 seconds of the trailer almost exclusively focuses on Felicity Jones as the protagonist Jyn Erso, selling her as a new franchise hero,” he writes. “The second half is dominated by the Imperial alert klaxon and Forest Whitaker’s voice over, and practically screams ‘EPIC’ at the viewer, before closing on another hero shot of Jones.” The first teaser for Solo, he noted, came out just 108 days out from release. The teaser, by our count, only had about 10 seconds of screen time where Ehrenreich’s face was clearly in the picture — not, in our opinion, nearly enough.”
STAR WARS FANS: No way anyone could come up with anything dumber than Star Wars Fatigue.
DEADLINE: Hold my beer.
So the latest reason Solo failed — keep in mind we are talking about the most famous and iconic brand in all of movie history — is 10 seconds of teaser trailer screen time, compared to 35 seconds; and the release of that trailer about four months prior to movie’s release, as opposed to eight months.
This, my friends, is how desperate the trades are to avoid reporting the truth, to avoid talking about the biggest entertainment story in decades.
There is simply no question that Kathleen Kennedy’s decision to ham-handedly inject moments of wokeness into a beloved universe — a universe that is supposed to be set a long time ago in a faraway galaxy, mind you — is killing a franchise even the dreaded Lucas prequels could not kill.
Star Wars is supposed to be about fantasy, about escaping from reality, about taking a two-hour vacation away from our world… That does not mean the franchise cannot have something to say about the human condition or other big themes. Certainly, the original trilogy touched on these things. But that is not what Kennedy is doing. Rather, she is so inept and blunderingly determined to send a message, she constantly breaks the spell, constantly sets up tripwires in her own movies meant to shock us back into reality. Worse still, she hectors and scolds, divides and shames.
And even when Kennedy is not scolding and shaming, we cannot relax and enjoy the movie, because we know the sucker punch is coming. We are always on guard. Rather than focusing on the fantasy world, we’re now thinking about the real-world names in the credits. Thinking about how they hate us. Why they hate us. Just because we politely disagree.
Above all, Star Wars is supposed to be fun. The Kennedy Experience is not fun.
What used to be a two-hour adventure involving adventure, romance, and heroism is now a two-hour trip to social justice summer camp with computer-animated action scenes.
Disney’s Star Wars franchise has some other problems, as well, including a almost comical lack of direction. What’s more, The Last Jedi pretty much negated everything fans hold dear (including a literal book burning). Then there is the systematic killing off of beloved actors, only to replace them with charisma-free actors; the systematic killing off of beloved characters, only to replace them with characters we really feel no investment in; too many Mary Sues who weigh in at 75 pounds but still manage to kick grown men’s asses (In TLJ, they digitally altered a shot to protect Rey)…
But according to our entertainment media overlords, everything is chill. Super-cool. No worries.
Seriously, it’s all good.
You see, Solo only lost a pittance, a mere $50 million, and all the next Star Wars lecture movie needs to do is add about 15 seconds to that teaser trailer, and those of us who have been relentlessly smeared in these movies as sexist, racist, backwards, homophobes and pansexualophobes are gunna line up around the block.
For realsies.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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