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Star Wars: Ron Howard Blames 'Casuals' For Solo Backlash


Say what you will about Solo: A Star Wars Story but Ron Howard is still convinced that the film could have been a true blockbuster. The director recently spoke out about the movie's disappointing box office performance and Howard pointed that that "tagalongs" played a major role in it.

Howard was recently a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast where he spoke about how Solo earned just enough thanks to real fans of the Star Wars franchise.

"It kind of seemed to me, looking at it, the opening -- which was big, not as big as the others, it was probably my biggest opening, personally, it was still disappointing to them -- I think those are the hardcore fans. It sort of tells you how many people are tagalongs who need to wait to see what people think and whether it's essential, if it's a zeitgeist movie or not, and whether it's just 'I love Star Wars and I want to see what's next,'" he said.

Of course, Howard is aware that there were other factors to Solo's disappointing box office performance. Nevertheless, he still points out that the negativity on social media had a certain effect on the film.

"So whatever millions [Solo] made worldwide, those were the core fans, but it didn't hit that zeitgeist point, for whatever reason. Timing, young Han Solo, pushback from the previous movie, which I kept hearing was maybe something. And some trolling, definitely some trolling. Some actual aggressive... It was pretty interesting. Not so much, a little bit the Twitter feed, yes, but it was especially noticeable prior to the release of the movie," Howard said.

We certainly understand Howard's disappointment. After all, Solo was a fun movie on its own that really didn't deserve all the negativity it received. Let's just hope that things will get better when the whole #MakeSolo2Happen campaign actually results in a sequel.

We're not sure if a Solo sequel is actually happening. In the meantime, the next Star Wars movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is set to premiere on December 20.

Related: Jon Kasdan Teases Solo 2 Plot Involving Crimson Dawn Vs Hutts

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