The Star Wars franchise has been on an up-and-down ride since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. 2015's The Force Awakens was a huge success liked by just about everyone, but follow-up films The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker were far more divisive. Rogue One was a hit movie that led to a hit TV series in Andor, possibly the best thing to come out of the franchise in years. Solo was a disappointing movie that inspired a Lando Calrissian spinoff series that never happened, one of many Star Wars projects that were announced but fizzled out for one reason or another. The Mandalorian is a hit TV show, The Acolyte got canceled after one season. We still don't know if Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will be back for a second season. It's a bit of a madhouse.
The second and final season of Star Wars: Andor premieres tonight on Disney+. Meanwhile, The Mandalorian will head to the big screen next year in The Mandalorian & Grogu, the first Star Wars movie since 2019's The Rise of Skywalker. Although creator Jon Favreau hasn't confirmed it, the movie may well bring the series to an end. "Right now, I'm focusing on the feature because we still have another year of the story," he recently told Collider. "Right now we're really locked in on the big screen story that's coming."
If The Mandalorian & Grogu is a big hit, I wouldn't be surprised if Disney finds a way to continue the series; they love their sequels, after all. But I feel like they're starting to wind down that story. Things have felt fairly quiet in the Star Wars universe lately, with more endings than beginnings.
But it looks like Lucasfilm wants to grow things again. There were a lot of new announcements at the Star Wars Celebration this past weekend. Shawn Levy talked about his new movie Star Wars: Starfighter, a standalone tale set after the conclusion of the sequel trilogy with Ryan Gosling in the main role; that one is due out in 2027. There's a new animated series called The Ninth Jedi on the way, a spinoff of Star Wars: Visions. There's been talk of a Star Wars horror project in the works. And today, The A.V. Club reports that Lost co-creator Carlton Cuse and his son Nick — who's working on shows like Watchmen and The Leftovers — will be working on a new Star Wars show. We don't know anything more than that as of yet.
All of a sudden, there are more beginnings than endings, although it's much harder to fool fans this time around. It pays to remember the many, many projects that were announced but which fell through, including a Star Wars movie from Marvel boss Kevin Feige that went nowhere, a movie from Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi that seems dead in the water, a Rogue Squadron movie from Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins that's lost in space, and aborted trilogies from both The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss. They've also announced a movie about Daisy Ridley's Rey from the sequel trilogy, but it's unclear if that one will make it to the screen.
And now we have this battery of new shows and movies, and I can't help but think, 'Surely they wouldn't announce a bunch of new projects unless they were certain they were actually going forward? Surely they learned their lesson from last time and wouldn't over-promise? Surely they actually have things together behind the scenes this time?'
But the truth is, I'm not sure. At this point, Disney has taught Star Wars fans to treat every new announcement like a suggestion of a possibility, not a guarantee. That's been to the franchise's detriment; it's hard to get too excited about something if you know there's a good chance it'll never actually happen.
Right now, the Star Wars things we know will go forward are The Mandalorian & Grogu, the second season of Star Wars: Ahsoka, and the final season of Andor, which may be good enough to make the whole thing worth it.
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