When the Star Wars universe revived itself in 2015 with The Force Awakens, it felt like the dawn of a bold new age. The movie raked in huge profits, made household names of folk like Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver, and set the franchise up for more success down the road.
Then came The Last Jedi in 2017, which divided the fandom. Then came The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, which did it again. In between, there were standalone hits like Rogue One and underperformers like Solo. And then came the TV shows, some of which hit (The Mandalorian, Andor), some of which flopped (The Book of Boba Fett, The Acolyte), and some of which are floating in the middle (Ahsoka).
The franchise now finds itself in the same position it's been in since at least 2017: unsure what direction to take. At one point, Lucasfilm was going to go all-in on multiple trilogies, including one from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff Dan Weiss and another from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson. All of them have now moved onto any projects, and however much Johnson insists that he "wouldn't rule out it happening down the line," I don't think anybody expects him to visit the galaxy far, far away anytime soon, if ever.
Speaking recently at a screening for the original Star Wars film, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy suggested that the future of Star Wars on the big screen may be less focused on sprawling, interconnected stories and more on standalone films. “I really think that now we’re in a position where it’s broadened the possibility of stories and filmmakers we can bring in to tell stories that mean something to them – it doesn’t necessarily have to connect to every little thing thats been done in Star Wars; it can actually be a standalone story that then builds into many many other stories,” she said, per Independent.
Indeed, looking at the upcoming slate of Star Wars movies, none of them look especially connected with each other. The next one is The Mandalorian & Grogu, an extension of the Disney+ TV series, due out in May of next year. There's a movie about Rey (Daisy Ridley) from the Star Wars sequel trilogy, although that one may be mired in development hell. Then there's Starfighter, a new project starring Ryan Reynolds that Kennedy and the other top brass seem behind. “It’s gonna be pretty big,” Kennedy teased.
But if Kennedy retires in the near future, and word is that she might, will her potential successors be as bullish? It's very hard to predict anything involving Star Wars right now, on the big screen or small. Temuera Morrison, who played Boba Fett in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, is wondering where the second season of his show is, and has even pitched Lucasfilm on him appearing in the upcoming second season of Ahsoka. As Morrison told Collider, he thinks he's being "preserved for a later date," but when he asked questions about Boba Fett's future to Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, the stewards of the Star Wars TV universe, they were noncommittal. Do they actually have plans for Boba, or are they politely trying to avoid saying that the character has been dumped after the failure of The Book of Boba Fett? Again, who knows?
The Star Wars franchise had a hit lately with Andor, a prequel to Rogue One that followed the nascent Rebel Alliance as it tried to shape itself up into an organization capable of taking on the tyrannical Empire. The show was uncommonly subtle for a Star Wars series, and people seemed to respond; the final episodes were the most-streamed show in the world during the week they debuted. But they were also the final episodes; wary of the cost and the commitment, Disney cut down the original plan for five seasons of Andor down to two, and another potential standard-bearer for the franchise is put to rest. Tony Gilroy, the man behind Andor, is moving onto other things. "I think I'd never say never, but I'm not doing that next," he told GoldDerby.
What Star Wars can learn from Marvel and DC
And so Star Wars is at the place where it's been stuck for years: trying to decide on its identity. Is it one big interconnected story with movies and shows that flow into each other? Is it a network of standalone movies and shows you can watch in any order you want? Should it just take a break and figure itself out?
That last one's not likely. Disney does not like the idea of letting major franchises lie un-exploited. But the overuse of them is a bit part of the reason people aren't excited about them. That's what happened to Marvel after the launch of Disney+, when Disney mandated that Marvel content flow onto the newly minted streaming service to draw in subscribers. “That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And it killed them,” Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who's now in charge of managing the DC Cinematic Universe for Warner Bros. Discovery, recently told Variety. And it's not just the competition saying this; Disney CEO Bob Iger said pretty much the exact same thing a couple years ago.
Iger and Gunn were both talking about Marvel, but the criticism could be leveled just as easily at Star Wars: there's simply too much of it for much of it to feel special. Gunn hopes to avoid that trap with his DC Universe by making sure they only make movies and shows they think are "as high-quality as possible"; they got off to a good start with The Penguin on HBO last year, and there's a lot of buzz around Gunn's upcoming Superman movie. Marvel may be turning things around too. A lot of people are excited for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which opens in theaters next month.
Right now, Star Wars doesn't have anything equivalent to those projects. The franchise seems to be in more of a rebuilding period. If I were them, I would look for advice from Tony Gilroy, the last person to really excite the fan base: "[I]f there's any lesson [from Andor], it's like swing away and see what you can get away with."
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.