When Solo: A Star Wars Story grossed a meager $100 million in its opening weekend in theaters, it was a new low for a franchise that once seemed too big to fail. With a budget of $275 million, it was relatively cheaper than its contemporaries — like The Force Awakens, which reportedly cost somewhere in the ballpark of $500 million to produce. But unlike the other films of Star Wars’ Disney era, Solo failed to gross $1 billion worldwide, a feat that was becoming commonplace otherwise.
Solo’s ultimate box office total was nothing to sneeze at, but it still came to represent everything Star Wars has to avoid if it wants to survive. The franchise pulled the plug on big-screen storytelling partly because of its perceived failure — and as The Mandalorian and Grogu brings Star Wars back to cinemas for the first time in seven years, the shadow of Solo looms uncomfortably large.
