Future Star Wars Story Films On Hold

Movies

The aftermath of Solo: A Star Wars Story’s failure grows as Collider reports that Lucasfilm has shelved plans for future installments in the Star Wars Story anthology series, meaning that both the Obi-Wan Kenobi and Boba Fett entries, which have gotten much press of late, appear to be off the table for the time being. This doesn’t mean there’ll be no Star Wars beyond Episode IX (which is, of course, still in development); the two announced spinoff series – one a trilogy from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, one from David Benioff and D.B. Weiss of Game of Thrones fame – are both moving forward, and after Episode IX releases, the next three chapters of the main series will be Lucasfilm’s “main focus.”

After a projected $50 million loss – at minimum – for Disney (on a Star Wars movie!), a response like this is hardly a shock. There are, of course, a lot of elements that may have led to Solo’s crash-and-burn box office take; while some lay the blame at “Star Wars fatigue” and stiff competition from blockbusters like Avengers: Infinity War, others point to fan dissatisfaction with the modern Star Wars films (The Last Jedi in particular) and the infusion of identity politics into the fun space saga. (While, in fairness, it’s tough to know for sure, the lack of fatigue for Marvel films and the success of Deadpool 2 even earlier in Infinity War’s theatrical run make me lean heavily towards the latter.) Whatever the case, the Star Wars Story films are the first heads to roll in the wake of the brand’s first bomb. Whether this is the right move is open to debate; the prequel spinoffs always sounded like a bad idea to me, but there seemed to be a lot of fan interest in bringing Ewan McGregor back as Obi-Wan Kenobi. But clearly Disney knows there’s a problem and is taking steps to fix it… more positive steps than insulting the fans, at long last.

Are you glad Disney is scrapping the Star Wars Story films? Were you looking forward to any of them? Do you think there’ll be more fallout from Solo? Let us know in the comments!