Solo: A Star Wars Story’s 65% drop is one of the highest in recent Star Wars history.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is losing momentum quickly at the box office, even with a relatively quiet weekend free of any new blockbuster competition. After an underwhelming launch, the space saga fell 65 percent in weekend two with 29.3 million dollars from North American theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
Solo has now earned 148.9 million dollars domestically, which is still shy of Rogue One’s December 2016 opening weekend of 155.1 million dollars and over 135 million dollars short of where Rogue One was in its second weekend.
The 65 percent drop off is one of the highest in recent Star Wars history, although it is less steep than the second week fall of the franchise’s last film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which slid 67.5 percent in weekend two this past December — but, that was also after a 220 million dollars debut.
Internationally, Solo added 30.3 million dollars, and globally the film has netted 264.2 million dollars.
Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for comScore, thinks that all the media attention given to Solo’s less-than-impressive opening weekend numbers could have actually negatively affected its second weekend earnings.
“Box office got conflated with perceived value of the movie and that might have affected its second weekend,” Dergarabedian said. “Sometimes news of the box office can impact a movie’s bottom line.”
He noted that in comScore’s audience survey, most of the over 1,000 people polled “really liked” the movie.
Solo’s tumble brought it even closer to Deadpool 2, which is now in its third weekend in theaters and still managed to reel in an estimated 23.3 million dollars to take second place. With a domestic total of 254.7 million dollarsand a crowded marketplace with both Solo and Avengers: Infinity War surrounding it, Deadpool 2 is still only about 30 million dollars behind where the first film was in its third weekend.
Shailene Woodley’s lost-at-sea drama Adrift fared the best of the three newcomers, which included the horror pic Upgrade and a Johnny Knoxville comedy Action Point. Adrift, from STX Entertainment, washed up in third place with 11.5 million dollars, while the others struggled to make a significant impact.
Upgrade opened In sixth place with 4.5 million dollars, behind both Avengers: Infinity War (10.4 million dollars) and Book Club (6.8 million dollars), and Action Point, which was not screened for critics, landed in ninth place with a dismal 2.3 million dollars.
This weekend also saw a few smaller studio landmarks for Magnolia Pictures, whose Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary RBG became its highest-grossing film ever with 7.9 million dollars, and Pantelion Films, which scored a similar feat with Overboard, which is now up to 45.5 million dollars.
Even with Solo’s stumble, the year-to-date box office is still up 6.2 percent as June kicks into gear with some big movies on the horizon, including Ocean’s 8, Incredibles 2 and Jurassic World.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.