Disney has a Star Wars problem on its hands. Since the studio acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, it's been running hard at the iconic sci-fi franchise, commissioning new movies, animated and live-action shows, and building theme parks. The interest in Star Wars now appears to be reaching a peak, and a series of tough losses in the franchise suggests it might be time for Disney to take radical action to secure the franchise's future.
One of the first things Disney did after gaining control of Star Wars was to commission a new trilogy of films within the Skywalker Saga. The Sequel Trilogy featured original characters, including Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), passing a baton onto a new generation of heroes. While divisive, the Sequel Trilogy made Disney a lot of money, with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi becoming the two highest-grossing Star Wars films of all time.
Disney didn't stop at one trilogy. It also commissioned the first Star Wars spin-off film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which also became a massive success, earning over half a billion dollars. However, since 2017, the Lucasfilm franchise has seen a string of inconsistencies, leading to many misses. The Rise of Skywalker, while financially successful, was critically panned, and Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed at the box office.
Disney has run at Star Wars on the TV side as well, producing a number of Disney+ exclusive streaming series.
While the animated Star Wars shows like Maul - Shadow Lord, The Bad Batch, and The Clone Wars Season 7 were successes, Star Wars has had a tougher time on the live-action front. The Mandalorian began as a huge win for the franchise, before ultimately disappointing fans in Season 3. The Acolyte was canceled after one season. The Book of Boba Fett, Skeleton Crew, and Obi-Wan Kenobi have been shelved, leaving Ahsoka and Andor as two of the only live-action TV successes for Star Wars in the Disney era.
The warning signs of crisis are truly sounding following the release of The Mandalorian & Grogu, an experiment from Lucasfilm that would take one of its popular Star Wars streaming series and transition it onto the big screen. When The Mandalorian & Grogu arrived on May 22, it was to an underwhelming box office performance and middling reviews.
The future of Star Wars movies looks grim, which means it might be time for Disney to make a game-changing decision.
Disney Could Make A Drastic Decision to Save Star Wars
With live-action Star Wars films and TV shows in crisis, it might be time for Disney to do something unthinkable: pull back on Star Wars altogether.
In the 14 years since Disney bought Lucasfilm, it's released six Star Wars movies and seven live-action TV shows. There has rarely been a year without something new from the galaxy far, far away, and while that's good news for fans, it appears to be a tactic that's wearing thin. Of course, Disney didn't acquire Lucasfilm to do nothing with it, but Star Wars' recent string of failures could be linked to fatigue with the franchise (something the superhero genre is also suffering from).
There was a 16-year gap between the release of the Original Star Wars Trilogy and the Prequels in 1999. There was then a further 10 years between the last Prequel Trilogy movie and the first Sequel Trilogy film. These significant gaps between live-action Star Wars releases gave fans time to miss the franchise while it was gone. Each time a new Star Wars film in the Prequels or Sequels was released, it felt like an event, because each was a one-of-a-kind release for its time.
Now, with so many different Star Wars properties releasing across Disney+ (both animation and live-action) and also in cinemas, they're coming out at a frequency that means fans never have to wait long until a new Star Wars project comes along. Maul - Shadow Lord and The Mandalorian & Grogu were released within just three weeks of each other. But if Disney were to halt production completely on live-action Star Wars film projects, it could play into the proverb that absence makes the heart grow fonder, setting up whatever the next Star Wars movie is for greater success.
This seems to be happening almost unintentionally anyway. Disney has announced dozens of new live-action Star Wars projects in recent years, but only a few have made it to production. The sole Star Wars film on the docket for the next few years is Star Wars: Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling, while on the live-action TV front, there is only Ahsoka Season 2. Beyond that, there's no telling which of the Star Wars seedlings will end up growing into something substantial.
If Disney has the patience to wait a significant amount of time to release a new Star Wars movie after Star Wars: Starfighter, it could end up being beneficial for them in the long run.
Taking the pressure off a quick turnaround will give the studio the time it needs to focus on its Star Wars films, ensuring the next theatrical release is the best it can be. While it may be tough for the business to leave one of its major moneymakers dormant, and difficult for fans who are hungry for more Star Wars content, it will help make the next Star Wars theatrical release feel like an event worth going to the cinema for.
