Liam Neeson: Too many Star Wars spinoffs takes away “the magic”

No one milks a franchise like Disney. With the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp, we’re up to 31 Marvel movies, plus a growing glut of TV shows. Star Wars hasn’t been quite as overexposed, particularly on the big screen, but between The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor and many series yet to come, fans have more than they could ever handle on Disney+.

Some fans are starting to get fatigued. And they’re not alone. During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Liam Neeson — who played Jedi knight Qui-Gon Jinn 1999’s The Phantom Menace, said he wasn’t interested in returning to the Star Wars universe, partially on account of how oversaturated the brand is these days. “There’s so many spinoffs of Star Wars. It’s diluting it to me, and it’s taken away the mystery and the magic in a weird way,” he said.

To be fair, Neeson has gone back and forth on whether he’d return as Qui-Gon, at one point saying that he would, but only for a movie…and then he had a cameo in that Obi-Wan series. Hey, the man’s feelings are allowed to change interview to interview.

Disney will get “better at curating” Star Wars content going forward

And Neeson might get his wish when it comes to seeing fewer Star Wars projects out at once. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney is planning to pull back on some of its big franchises after years of pounding audiences with content; that strategy was all the rage for a while as studios tried to get people to buy their new streaming services, but recently they’ve been thinking twice about the return on investment that kind of spending produces.

Earlier this month, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that the company needs to be “better at curating” franchise content. “We want the quality on the screen, but we have to look at what they cost us.” Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige said something about Marvel the other day: “The pace at which we’re putting out the Disney+ shows will change so they can each get a chance to shine.”

This is going to be an industry-wide change, as the torrent of content slows down a bit and studios focus on putting out a smaller number of shows that make more of an impact. That said, Star Wars is kind of unique in that, while we’ve been getting tons of TV shows, we haven’t had a new movie since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, and there’s no clear plan to release one in the immediate future. Disney is hoping to change that, but the new movies will still be made in an environment that is less about producing as much as possible and more about fiscal responsibility. “Lucasfilm may ramp up, but it will have to abide by the same fiscal discipline as the rest of the company,” said the insider.

HBO does franchises right with House of the Dragon

Personally, I’m fine with all of this. As far as Star Wars goes, when The Mandalorian premiered on Disney+ in 2019, it felt very special and interesting. And I’m still looking forward to the upcoming third season, but not as much as I would be if we hadn’t already gotten so many other Star Wars shows in the interim (including The Book of Boba Fett, which basically included some shadow episodes of The Mandalorian, meaning fans have to watch multiple shows if they want to keep up with what’s happening).

This site is WinterIsComing.net, so maybe it’s natural that we flatter HBO, but looking at that studio, I can’t help but think that they have the right idea. After the success of Game of Thrones, HBO fully could have given us multiple spinoffs. But they took their time and eventually put out the prequel show House of the Dragon, which was a big hit. It’s possible we’ll get more spinoffs down the road, but it’s not guaranteed; they’re not rushing things. It feels like other studios are catching up to their example.

As for The Mandalorian season 3, it premieres on Disney+ on March 1.

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h/t Variety