There will be fewer ‘Star Wars’ films coming out in the near future after a lukewarm response to ‘Solo’ earlier this year…
Too much, too fast.
That’s how Disney CEO Bob Iger describes the aggressive plans the company had for ‘Star Wars’ after purchasing the franchise when they bought Lucasfilm several years ago.
Unfortunately, the last two ‘Star Wars’ films have been met with less than enthusiastic reviews with ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ getting mixed reactions from critics and movie goers (although the movie still made a boat load of money at the box office) and then ‘Solo’, which was mired in production issues and then failed to live up to expectations when it finally landed in theaters.
The lukewarm response to ‘Solo’ reportedly had Disney reconsidering the plans to release at least one ‘Star Wars’ movie per year with several stand alone movies already in the works including rumored films focused on characters such as Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Now it appears Disney is pulling back the reins on the ‘Star Wars’ franchise with ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ due out next year from director J.J. Abrams and then nothing else on the books yet for the next release.
“I made the timing decision, and as I look back, I think the mistake that I made — I take the blame — was a little too much, too fast,” Iger told the Hollywood Reporter when addressing the ‘Star Wars’ franchise. “You can expect some slowdown, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to make films. J.J. [Abrams] is busy making [Episode] IX. We have creative entities, including [Game of Thrones creators David] Benioff and [D.B.] Weiss, who are developing sagas of their own, which we haven’t been specific about. And we are just at the point where we’re going to start making decisions about what comes next after J.J.’s.
“But I think we’re going to be a little bit more careful about volume and timing. And the buck stops here on that.”
Prior to the slow down on the release of so many ‘Star Wars’ films, Lucasfilm had already started preparing for the next major trilogy in the franchise with writer/director Rian Johnson expected to plot out his own series along with ‘Game of Thrones’ show runners David Benioff and Dan Weiss doing their own series of movies separate from the Skywalker saga.
Then there were all the ‘Star Wars’ stand alone movies as previously mentioned that were also going to be released over the course of the next few years.
Now it seems Disney is slowing down production on so many ‘Star Wars’ films but instead being a little more meticulous with the projects, especially when it comes to how close they will be released in relation to each other.
