It seems the box office disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story has prompted some soul-searching over at Lucasfilm.
Collider is reporting today that future Star Wars Anthology movies are on hold until further notice, as the company rethinks its approach to those films ending in ‘A Star Wars Story’. That includes the mooted Obi-Wan spinoff and James Mangold’s newly-announced Boba Fett project, which isn’t expected to begin production until 2020.
Instead, Lucasfilm is said to be focusing all of its resources on getting Star Wars: Episode IX over the finish line, given its due to bring the curtain down on this current Sequel Trilogy in December of next year. And beyond that? New trilogies from Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are already being planned, though it’s bad news for those Anthology movies trying to reserve their space in the galaxy far, far away.
Per Collider:
We’re hearing that plans to revisit this A Star Wars Story format have been put on hold for the moment. Initially announced as ‘anthology’ movies, the spinoffs got off to a rocky start and haven’t exactly been smooth sailing.
Chances are Disney and Lucasfilm decided to take the foot off the pedal once Solo began to struggle at the worldwide box office. What comes next remains to be seen, but we imagine the Powers That Be will want to gauge audience demand before they move forward with those spinoffs dedicated to Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
At least, that’s according to Collider:
As of right now we’re hearing the studio’s focus has moved away from these spinoffs for the time-being and is squarely intent on getting Episode IX to the finish line and figuring out what the next trilogy of films will be.
Next up for Lucasfilm’s space opera is the release of Episode IX on December 20th, 2019. But for the first time in what feels like forever, the immediate future of Star Wars is somewhat uncertain.