Disney doesn’t want to make Star Wars movies anymore

They no longer wish to continue the legacy they bought when they purchased Lucasfilm from George Lucas.

This is truly the darkest timeline now.

Cinemablend had a report from Disney’s quarterly meeting, and by far the biggest news was that Disney would not be focusing on movies for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday The Walt Disney Company held it's quarterly earnings all for investors, and while most of the information was dry financial stuff that's only going to be interesting to the biggest nerds (hi), the call usually reveals a few interesting details about what the company has planned on the content side. A lot of the call was spent touting the success of Disney+ as a whole, and The Mandalorian specifically, and Iger also said that The Mandalorian and the other Star Wars projects currently planned for Disney+ are part of the reason that we won't see a big-screen Star Wars for a while, Lucasfilm's attention is simply being placed somewhere else.

There are a couple things to take from this.

One, through incompetence so stunning that it borders intentional sabotage Star Wars movies aren’t making the money they should. To the point where the largest media company can’t seem to make them work.

I feel though the higher-ups at Disney are taking all the wrong messages from the failure of the Sequel Trilogy and the success of The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian succeeds because it was helmed by people that cared about, and understood, Star Wars, as well as having a track record of putting together good stories.

The Star Wars movies failed because they put them in the hands of people that didn’t understand or were even hostile to the idea of Star Wars.

Rian Johnson did everything he could to make a movie to kill the Star Wars legacy. He was so consumed by forcing his own vision that he twisted and wrecked the story into something no one wanted to see.

Then, to counter Rian Johnson. They brought in new writers. One of which was Chris Terrio. This man wrote Batman V Superman. That itself should be grounds to be banned from Hollywood. But then he wrote The Rise Of Skywalker which is grounds to ban him from writing period. He should not be allowed to touch a computer, a typewriter, nor a pen and paper. Not only should he not be a screenwriter. I think it’s fair to say I wouldn’t let him teach creative writing at the local community college.

While I want Disney to focus on what they do well. I can’t help but think that this is a mistake.

Don’t get me wrong, I would rather they do TV shows if the alternative is The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.

But, Star Wars belongs in theaters. It redefined cinema. It helped create the blockbuster. The core trilogy lends itself to the big screen. There are huge space battles, and larger than life characters.

Plus, there’s nothing like hearing that score roaring triumphantly through the theater while you’re sitting there waiting for the movie to start.

And, while it’s well documented that Bob Iger and Disney might have misled Lucas, and he certainly feels betrayed, I can’t help but think he sold Star Wars to Disney so they could keep making movies. George Lucas made TV shows on his own. I think he wanted the movies coming out after his time was over. So kids would grow up seeing Lucasfilm, and “characters created by George Lucas” much like I knew who Walt Disney was because I saw his name in front of every movie I saw as a child.

But, Disney doesn’t care. They don’t care about the story or legacy. They just want subscribers to Disney+ and people going through the gates at DisneyWorld. And they’ll do that in the cheapest way possible.

I just think one day they’ll realize everything they left on the table, they could make something to dwarf the MCU and all they have to do is put it in the hands of people that care about Star Wars instead of people doing their best to destroy it.