Day Disney Acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the company did not waste time clarifying what it was buying For $ 4.05 billion, Announces three new ones Star Wars The movies were already in the works. In a partner call on the day the deal was announced, then-CEO Robert Iger outlined the company’s ambitions: “Our long-term plan is to release a new Star Wars movie every two or three years.”
Eight years later, it is fair to say that Disney’s aspirations for the Star Wars owner are more than a reasonable shadow, with at least 10 different series in the works for Disney Plus. Most were announced last week Company Epic Investors Day Presentation; Fans’ favorite character is the latest about Boba Fed Announced At the end of the post-credit teaser for the season 2 finale of the first live action Star Wars TV series, “Mandalorian. ”
If this is known, it is a ploy to create a franchise that has been used for more than a decade by Lucasfilm’s corporate sibling for astronomically profitable effect. Marvel Studios.
This is Lucasfilm’s second attempt to copy it.
At the time of Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, it was many years since the company thanked Marvel Studios, the iconic pop-culture brand, for its acquisition in 2009. In May 2012, Avengers debuted with record-breaking success, and with two or three Marvel Studios projects opening each year, redefined licensed filmmaking as a series of creatively intertwined films at unprecedented speeds. In comparison, the initial prediction of a new Star Wars feature every “two or three years” was as slow as a fog cutting across the sand of Tatoo.
So the company quickly highlighted, pushing Lucasfilm to release a new Star Wars movie each year, with a series of features set between the sequel Skywalker Saga films in the big Star Wars world. Once that final trilogy is over, this annual once-in-a-lifetime sequel will create their own sequel and spread beyond what Star Wars has tried before with ownership. George Lucas made three Star Wars films from 1977 to 1983 and three Breakwell films from 1999 to 2005 16 years later. Suddenly, Disney is going to double the number of live-action Star Wars movies in just six years. The company banked that the Star Wars franchise was capable of sustaining the rapid expansion of its cinematic footprint, as did Marvel Entertainment’s core canon – a sub – universe created over decades in books, animated television series and comics.
At first, the plan seemed to work: 2016’s “Rock One: A Star Wars Story” – about the devastating attempt to secure plans for the Death Store – earned an unqualified blockbuster, grossing $ 1.06 billion worldwide. But the next film, 2018’s “Solo” – the original story of young Han Solo, starring cousin Alton Ehrenrich – opened five months after “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and was bombed worldwide with 3 393 million.
It is true that “Solo” suffered from bad press after Lucasfilm director Kathleen Kennedy fired directors Bill Lord and Christopher Miller during production; Ron Howard raised the budget to $ 250 million. “Solo” became the first Star Wars movie to lose money.
But even though “Solo” enjoyed a smooth shoot with a very reasonable budget, the underlying issues were obvious from the beginning. Unlike Marvel Studios movies, “Solo” does not include the big story that is really going on or illustrates the previously unknown scale of the Star Wars Creative Galaxy. It answered questions – from how Han Solo met Sevpoka to how he got his last name – that the audience didn’t exactly shout to know at first. Most critically, there was a nostalgia for a character similar to the actor who played him; Without Harrison Ford, “Solo” would not have found its main appeal, as Ehrenrich could have been in the role.
However, instead of treating “solo” as a subject for future films, Disney completely backed down and canceled the entire “Star Wars Story” initiative – including movies. Boba Fed And Obi-Wan Canobi – before it actually took off. Studio 2019 has imposed a three-year ban on Star Wars movies following “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” In April 2019 Interview With Bloomberg TV, Iger, with characteristic prudence, called it “a pause” and “a break” – a rare (if there is a fair word) vision within Disney’s strategic thinking outside of the company’s quarterly investor statements.
However, the basic message was clear: Disney and Lucasfilm have gone too fast, too fast. The bid for the Marvel-Ice Star Wars is frozen in carbonate, and its future is uncertain.
As it turns out, Disney needs a dull warrior and his indescribably cute baby friend. Disney Plus’ refusal to disclose the number of viewers, although incalculable, proved that “The Mandalorian”‘s wild success could thrive on Star Wars ownership outside of Skywalker Saga. This is the spark of Lucasfilm to start Star Wars franchise on HyperDrive.
Many of the new Star Wars series for Disney Plus Announced last week Focused around familiar characters: Boba Fed and Obi-Wan spin-off movies reincarnated as streaming series; Diego Luna is the title of the “Rock One” prequel series called “Under”; Justin Simeon (“Dear White People”) is producing a Lando Galician series; And Lucasfilm Animation and Industrial Light and Magic create the animated series about R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Importantly, Lucasfilm adopts the entire Marvel design by incorporating “The Book of Bopa Fed,” “Ahsoka” and “Rangers of the New Republic” within the deadline established by “The Montalorian”. The series will all be produced by John Fawrow and Dave Filoni, two people at Lucasfilm who have come much closer to the kind of view that is now popularly used by Kevin Faiz, head of Marvel Studios, than Kennedy. All of them, in the affirmative language of Disney’s Investors’ Day announcement, “end in a climactic story event.” In other words, Lucasfilm aims for its own “Avengers”.
The big question now is whether all of this will work. Following the box office success of “Solo”, many viewers wondered whether Star Wars was as creatively resilient as Marvel Studios’ films, which vary widely in tone and attitude – from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” to “Guardians” or “Guardians” or ” Thor: Ragnarok ”- somehow shares the same important sentiment. To date, every Star Wars project has felt more or less the same as Star Wars, in terms of film or TV, and there is not yet enough to suggest that new shows are no longer false. It’s hard to imagine Lucasfilm systematically inventing a Star Wars show like Marvel’s first Disney Plus show. “Wandavision.” Meanwhile, Faiz is currently Growing His own Star Wars movie.
A Interview With Variety In October, The Montalorian star Point Pascal, Favreau – the director of the first two “Iron Man” films – made it clear that he understood the inherent challenges in trying to expand the scope of Star Wars.
“I learned a lot from my experience at Marvel, it was very organic and how it was formed,” Pavro said. “You focus on the big story curves and the characters that come together, but the short stories of the individual characters. [on their own thing]. The important thing here is to maintain quality, we lose what is important to us and what people like about the show.
Lucas Has done There is no secret His Deeply obscure Feelings about what became of his brainwashing. But if Disney can do an extension of Star Wars – if Marvel Studios has proven anything, that’s it There is Doable – Studio not only puts Star Wars on an equal footing with its Marvel counterparts, it is also prophetic. Presented by Lucas On the day Disney bought its company: “We can produce ‘Star Wars’ for the next 100 years.”