Disney planning a “significant expansion” of the Star Wars universe
By Dan Selcke
Brace yourselves: Disney is getting ready to reveal a “Death Star-size trove” of Star Wars content today. Expect new shows, movies and more.
Once upon a time, Disney had Star Wars movies planned years into the future, with lots of big plans. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson was gonna make a trilogy. Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were gonna make a trilogy, and who knows what else was in the hopper?
Then, The Last Jedi set off a fan firestorm of the like Star Wars fans hadn’t seen since…well, the prequel movies a couple decades earlier. The Rise of Skywalker got its fair share of hate, too. Solo: A Star Wars Story underperformed at the box office. Suddenly, Disney CEO Bob Iger was talking about a “slowdown” for the franchise. “I think the mistake that I made — I take the blame — was a little too much, too fast,” he said at the time.
And indeed, things have slowed, at least on the movie front. Benioff and Weiss left Star Wars for Netflix. We haven’t heard a peep about Johnson’s trilogy in a long while and wouldn’t be shocked if it were also cancelled.
But we all knew there was no keeping Star Wars down for long. Taika Waititi is making a new film, The Mandalorian is a big success on Disney+, and there are a lot more Star Wars series in development, including one about Obi-Wan Kenobi, one about Cassian Andor, an untitled “female-centric” show from Russian Doll showrunner Leslye Headland, The Bad Batch, and plenty of rumored series beyond that.
If Star Wars slowed down for a minute, it’s revving itself back up to full speed. And indeed, The New York Times has it that Disney is planning “a significant expansion of the Star Wars universe,” including a “Death Star-size trove of coming content.”
We’ll likely learn much more this afternoon at Disney’s Investor Day conference. We expect news on a lot of the shows we just mentioned, confirmation on a couple of the rumors, and something brand new. Watch this space for updates…
Next. Every Star Wars movie and TV show Disney has made, ranked worst to best. dark
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