Summary

• Solo's failure was not the actors' fault, but rather a result of poor marketing and an inflated budget.
• Lucasfilm's decision to bench Boba Fett shows a pattern of learning the wrong lessons from past mistakes.
• Neglecting beloved characters like Han Solo and Boba Fett is costing Lucasfilm in of storytelling and fan satisfaction.

The box office numbers of Star Wars movies to the continued success of books, novels, games, and other media elements set in a galaxy far, far away.

Similarly, the continued output of Star Wars movies replicate former success or repeat symptoms of these failures remains to be seen, but what is certain is that Lucasfilm continues to learn the wrong lessons from its less successful ventures.

Star Wars Has Completely Misunderstood Why Solo Failed

Lucasfilm Learned The Wrong Lessons From Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story is the franchise's biggest bomb, earning only $393 million against a budget reported to be as big as $330 million. As such, Solo is the only live-action Star Wars movie in history to be deemed an outright box office failure. The other movies of the franchise were commercial successes, more than earning back their production budgets and allowing Star Wars to be one of the most profitable franchises in movie history. Unfortunately, Solo could not continue this track record and marked the first flop for Lucasfilm where Star Wars is concerned.

While this alone is a frustrating fact, what makes Solo's failure even more disappointing is the fact that Lucasfilm learned the wrong lessons from the scenario. According to those at Lucasfilm, it was the recasting of iconic Star Wars characters that resulted in Solo's poor box office performance. This much was confirmed by comments on Star Wars' Han Solo recast from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, with the franchise since having disregarded the actors hired to play younger versions of Han Solo and Lando Calrissian.

However, it was not the young actors who caused Solo's poor performance. In fact, many would agree that Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover were shining lights of Solo as Han and Lando respectively. Instead, it was the lack of strong marketing that saw Solo fail. Solo was released amid strong competition in May 2018, as the likes of Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 dominated the box office. To offset this strong competition, Lucasfilm should have poured more into marketing the movie, yet failed to do so.

Many issues caused Solo to fail at the box office, yet the incredibly good actors hired were not one of them...

This links to another reason Solo flopped: its inflated budget. The high production budget of the film is likely a huge factor in why Lucasfilm did not spend more to market the anthology movie. The failure to hash out a concise plan with Solo's original directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, saw Ron Howard hired later into production, resulting in 70% of the movie being reshot and massively upping its budget. As evident, many issues caused Solo to fail at the box office, yet the incredibly good actors hired were not one of them, contrary to Lucasfilm's belief.

Now Star Wars Has Benched Boba Fett As Well

Another Great Star Wars Actor & Their Character Has Been Mistreated

Recently, Lucasfilm has proved yet again that the studio cannot learn the correct mistakes from Star Wars failures. Putting movies aside, the worst-ranked Star Wars TV shows tend to include 2021's The Book of Boba Fett. Despite the overwhelming excitement at Temuera Morrison's return as Boba Fett in The Mandalorian season 2 and his subsequent spin-off, the latter was poorly received by fans and critics alike, making it one of the few Star Wars TV shows to hold this unfortunate reputation.

This has led to the question of whether Boba Fett will have another Star Wars return in the near future, something star Temuera Morrison has shed some light on recently. During FAN EXPO Chicago, Morrison revealed that he was initially supposed to be part of The Mandalorian season 4 as Boba Fett, but that the show's pivot towards the theatrical The Mandalorian & Grogu project means he is waiting on a call from the studio to explain his character's future. This is beyond frustrating, as Lucasfilm's decision to withdraw Boba Fett from projects is undoubtedly a reaction to The Book of Boba Fett's poor reception.

As was the case with Solo Lucasfilm is taking the wrong lesson from this reaction. Even those disappointed with The Book of Boba Fett would agree that Morrison, and the titular character, was not a problem with the series. Morrison is one of the most dedicated actors in the franchise and has an obvious love for Star Wars, and Boba Fett is a character many wish to see more of, albeit in more compelling stories than The Book of Boba Fett.

Temuera Morrison has stated since 2021 that he will continuously push to have Boba be involved in more projects, highlighting Lucasfilm's misreading of the show's failures even more.

The story and characterization of this show are what fans did not respond to, not Boba himself. Unfortunately, rather than fixing the issues with writing and character arcs in future seasons of The Book of Boba Fett or including him in celebrated ing roles as was the case in The Mandalorian season 2, Boba and Morrison have been benched. This is a sad reality for fans of Boba and for Morrison himself, who has endlessly reiterated his desire to step back into the armor as part of Star Wars' New Republic timeline once more.

Star Wars' Mistakes Are Costing Lucasfilm... Badly

Lucasfilm Is Missing Out On Some Of Star Wars' Best Aspects

With these mistakes being highlighted, it becomes clear that they are costing Lucasfilm where stories and characters are concerned. Regarding Solo, many have come to love the movie specifically for its younger cast . The "#MakeSolo2Happen" campaign spawned shortly after the film's release due to the love Ehrenreich received as Han Solo, as well as Glover in the role of Lando. Lucasfilm seemed to listen to this to an extent by announcing the development of a Lando series, now thought to be a film, with Glover onboard.

However, that film has been left in limbo since, with its own share of production issues. Where Ehrenreich is concerned, there is nothing to suggest his return in any movies or shows. Then there is Boba Fett, one of the most iconic characters in Star Wars history who is simply sitting on a shelf with no further development planned. These decisions are ultimately costing Lucasfilm great stories and characters, and most of the fanbase is aware of this fact. Unfortunately, though, Star Wars is still suffering from its parent company learning the wrong mistakes from past failures.