After much anticipation, the first trailer to Star Wars Episode IX was finally released as part of the 2019 Star Wars Celebration fan event and it has sparked a heap of debates on how the sequel trilogy will end, what the subtitle means (like, The Rise of Skywalker can have so many interpretations), and what the deal is with Rey’s parentage.
Episode IX marks the end of the sequel trilogy but you’d expect Disney to keep pumping out Star Wars films until the end of time. However, this may not be the case according to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who told Bloomberg that there will be a hiatus after The Rise of Skywalker is released.
And you know what, we’re totally onboard with this plan because we’re done with Star Wars (for now).
For all the love (and money) that Star Wars receives from fans, especially after Disney bought the franchise seven years ago, there are signs that the honeymoon period may be over.
Not only are toy sales – a big revenue source – falling according to Bloomberg, the most recent Star Wars film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, got mixed reviews and is the lowest earning film in the entire franchise. It’s perhaps no surprise though because the last few years have been an all out blitz on all things Star Wars.
Since 2015, we’ve had four (soon to be five) movies, two games, a couple of animated shows, several toy lines, and a bunch of high profile games that got a lot of attention, not all of it necessarily good. I’ve probably forgotten a bunch of other things but you get the gist.
With that much content over the last few years, it doesn’t take a podracing prodigy on Tatooine to figure out that Star Wars fatigue is setting in and people are just getting a little done with the franchise and just want it to go away for a bit.
Agreed.
There’s no doubt The Rise of Skywalker will go gangbusters at the box office since it’s the last sequel trilogy film after all, but Solo‘s underperformance shows there’s no guarantee that the next slate of films will have the same level of success regardless of what kind of talent is working on them (The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is working on a new trilogy of films, and Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are working on another series of movies).
A hiatus will be incredibly beneficial to the film portion of Star Wars as this will give the creators enough time to craft good follow-ups, as well as allow fans to really miss the franchise on the big screen. There’s no denying that the 10 year gap between Revenge Of The Sith and The Force Awakens played a big part in the latter film’s enormous success so why not take another break between the sequel trilogy and the next batch of movies?
Besides, it’s not like we’re going to be short of Star Wars content in the short to medium term. There’s The Mandalorian, the upcoming live-action series coming to Disney’s streaming service in November and a second live-action show coming on 2021 so there’s plenty of stuff to help get your Star Wars fix.
So let’s enjoy the lead up to the release of The Rise of Skywalker in December before taking a break because both the fans and the studio deserve a rest from Star Wars movies for a bit.
Who knows, maybe the hiatus will allow the long-gestating Boba Fett and Obi Wan Kenobi solo films enough time to finally take shape.