Ron Howard blames toxic Star Wars fans for failure of Solo

Filmmaker Ron Howard believes the toxic fandom of Star Wars franchise was one of the reasons why his 2018 directorial Solo: A Star Wars Story failed at the box office.

During his appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the 65-year-old director said he is still happy with the performance of the film. "I love the way it played to audiences, which I witnessed and was a part of. So all of that I'm able to feel good about. Sure, I wish it would've done better and lived up to the box office and so forth, so that's disappointing."

About the reason for it's disappointing performance, he added, "Maybe it's the release. Maybe it's the idea that it's sort of too nostalgic, going back and revisiting an origin story for a beloved character may not be what the fans were looking for."

The director, who had joined the project after the departure of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, said the hardcore fans of the franchise were not happy with the film. "It kind of seemed to me, looking at it, the opening, which was big, but 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 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 added.

Howard believes his film also received "pushback" from the fans, who were feeling aggrieved with Rian Johnson's 2017 feature, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. "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," he said.

"A little bit the Twitter feed, yes, but it was especially noticeable prior to the release of the movie. Several of the algorithms, whether it was Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes, there was an inordinate push down on the 'want to see' and on the fan voting," Howard added.