Disney Chairman Reacts to Media Calling 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' a 'Failure'

A near $400 million box office performance and generally positive reviews is a major success for most films, but that's not the case when it comes to the Star Wars franchise.

For a franchise in which billion-dollar performances are commonplace, it was disappointing that last year's Solo: A Star Wars Story was a bit of a box office bomb with its estimated $300 million budget and $392 million box office results.

However, Disney chairman Alan Horn believes the media categorization of the film as a failure is misguiding.

"It's always a challenge because — and I say this with love and respect for media — the thing about these big movies is they get a lot of attention, whether positive or negative. So when they don't work, like Solo, the media says it's a failure," Horn told The Hollywood Reporter. "I think it was a pretty good movie. It didn't resonate as much as we'd hoped it would, but the press writes it up in a more negative way than I would."

Horn acknowledged that expectations are higher with Disney Studios, so when a film underperforms, it gets relatively overblown.

"If Aladdin, which I happen to think is a terrific film, doesn't work somehow, that's big news and much bigger news than if a movie somewhere else, like The Kid Who Would Be King [at Fox], doesn't work," he added.

Horn and the rest of the higher-ups at Disney are banking on Star Wars: Episode IX, which is set for a Dec. 20 theatrical release, to be a much greater success than Solo.