Disney says it wants to “step back” from Star Wars movies…for now

Kathleen Kennedy discusses Disney’s new Star Wars movie strategy, drops info on the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, and John Boyega tells toxic fans to “fack off.”

The Star Wars sequel trilogy is over, but the Star Wars franchise is more active than it’s ever been, with a huge number of shows coming to streaming service Disney+. The Mandalorian is already on the air, then there’s The Bad Batch, the Cassian Andor show, a series from Russian Doll showrunner Leslye Headland, and more.

So Star Wars fans are in no danger of a content drought. But what about Star Wars movies specifically? According to Star Wars over-boss Kathleen Kennedy, Disney is taking it easy for a while. “[We want to] step back and really absorb what George [Lucas] created [before starting something else],” she told The Wrap. “That’s what we’ve been doing, and we’ve been having a great deal of fun doing it, and meeting with lots of different filmmakers and talent.”

"There’s so many fans out there and so many filmmakers that have been influenced by Star Wars for so long that it’s a fantastic opportunity to get a sense of who wants to be a part of this.Stories have been told within this universe over the last 40-odd years. And there’s now the realization that this is a mythology that actually spans about 25,000 years… When you really start to look at all the different stories that have been told, whether it’s in books and games."

Now, I’m giving the side-eye to all of this. Because not long ago, Disney had plans to put out a new Star Wars movie every two years starting in 2022. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson was going to make a trilogy. Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were going to make a trilogy.

Then Benioff and Weiss announced that they were no longer involved in Star Wars, and we haven’t heard anything specific about Johnson’s movies in a while. And suddenly they’re saying they’re taking a break? If you ask me, Disney got a little spooked by the divisive fan reception to both The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker (not to mention the final season of Game of Thrones), scrapped whatever plans it had and adopted this “let’s meet with filmmakers and explore options” policy.

But the irony of all this is that because Star Wars stands to make so much money for Disney, taking a break isn’t actually possible. The way Kennedy is talking, you’d think they didn’t have any new Star Wars movie in the works, but we know that Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is on deck to direct a Star Wars film to be released a few years down the line. Then there’s the Star Wars: High Republic publishing initiative, which will explore some of that 25,000-year-long history Kennedy was talking about. The franchise is just too lucrative for the company to allow the movies to go on hiatus for that long, for better or worse.

And of course, there are all those TV shows. The Mandalorian, at least, has been a bit hit, and Kennedy seems to know that’s where the series is having the most success right now. “The ability to be very character-driven, with extended storytelling and connected storytelling…I think this space offers us a great opportunity to do that,” she said.

Speaking of the TV shows, Kennedy dropped a bit of information about the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series, which will see Ewan McGregor returning to the role of played in the prequels. “It’s been very exciting to see the talent that’s come in. And we’re now developing the limited Obi-Wan Kenobi series with Deborah Chow, and she’s just been doing a phenomenal job.”

Calling it a “limited” series suggests that the Obi-Wan show will be a one-and-done thing, rather than an ongoing show with multiple seasons.

And I’m all for that. One of the more disquieting rumors about the upcoming Star Wars shows we’ve heard is that they’re all going to be interconnected, potentially making it so you have to follow them all if you want to understand what’s going on in any one. Kennedy’s comment about “connected storytelling” doesn’t make me feel about better about this.

The best thing about the first season of The Mandalorian was that it stood on its own apart from anything else in the franchise — you could watch it without having seen any other Star Wars thing and still enjoy it. If that’s the direction that the Obi-Wan show is going in, I approve.

One more piece of Star Wars news before we leave behind the galaxy far, far away: the famously outspoken John Boyega (Finn) is at it again, hitting back at “toxic” Star Wars fans in terms that leave no room for ambiguity:

Boyega has had a lot of colorful interactions with fans since the sequel trilogy ended; they especially flared up after he had some fun with Reylo stans, with the whole thing culminating in a pretty epic homemade music video:

Boyega also made waves as an advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. At the least, he is not boring to watch.

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h/t Digital Spy, CinemaBlend