One could argue that the last three Star Wars movies, The Last Jedi, Solo: A Star Wars Story and The Rise of Skywalker, were all disappointments. The Last Jedi failed to earn as much as The Force Awakens (what film could, though?) and was met with much divisiveness among fans. Solo, meanwhile, which was released just five months after was the lowest grossing entry in the entire franchise by a mile.
And then we come to The Rise of Skywalker. Despite recently passing the magical $1 billion mark, the movie has still disappointed. A recent report indicates that it’s had the steepest box office decline of any blockbuster in history and it also scored the worst reviews of any Star Wars film. Not exactly a great way to close out a nine-movie saga spanning more than 40 years, eh?
Disney CEO Bob Iger is well aware of this Star Wars slump though and is once again reiterating from previous comments that Lucasfilm is taking a bit of a “hiatus” from theatrical releases. With the recently launched Disney Plus as well as its first flagship show, The Mandalorian, earning rave reviews, the company will be focusing on the small screen for the time being.
“The priority in the next few years is television,” Iger shared during Disney’s quarterly earnings call.
In addition to season 2 of The Mandalorian returning this fall, the streaming service also has Star Wars: The Clone Wars and two more live-action TV series in the pipeline. Although, we’ll have to see what happens with the Obi-Wan show, as that’s had just as much drama as the feature films lately.
Unfortunately, Iger’s comments fail to clarify when we’ll be seeing the next Star Wars movie on the big screen. There was a feature film developed by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss scheduled to be released in December of 2022, but that’s in doubt now after the Game of Thrones creators announced they were no longer pursuing the project.
As such, when we’ll next see Star Wars on the big screen remains to be seen. With the box office in a downward trajectory though, Disney and Lucasfilm appear to be taking things slow in order to figure out their next move. And frankly, that’s probably for the best.