During the ‘Scale: The Future of Tech and Entertainment’ conference this week, Disney CEO Bob Iger opened up about how long he envisions the Star Wars franchise will continue. Let’s just say it won’t be over any time soon.
According to Variety, Iger revealed Disney has been busy looking at how to explore “what could be another decade and a half of Star Wars stories.” Aside from the current trilogy with Episodes 7-9 and the two standalone anthology movies (Rogue One, Untitled Han Solo project) that will lead up to 2019, no other projects have been announced. With fanfare and anticipation for the franchise at an all-time high, it’s hard to imagine that there won’t be a new Star Wars film in 2020. But if Bob Iger is to be believed, that streak might extend into 2030.
Iger’s comments aren’t too surprising. The past two Star Wars movies have each made over $1 billion at the box office, so it makes sense Disney wants to capitalize on its most popular entity.
Not that long, Disney was in the process of developing a standalone Boba Fett movie before director Josh Trank fell out of favor and the project was shelved altogether. A resurrected version of the project might be included in the decade and a half of movies Iger was talking about. It would also be really cool to probe some non-Skywalker Jedi stories, exploring the vastness of the Star Wars universe. There’s certainly plenty of source material to draw inspiration from.
Iger also revealed more details about the Han Solo project, and said a digital recreation of the late Carrie Fischer won’t be involved in the movie.
This may lead to Star Wars fatigue
As great as another decade of Star Wars movies sounds, Bob Iger and Disney should tread lightly with the franchise or else it might fatigue audiences. Even if it avoids the mistakes Marvel has encountered, enthusiasm for the franchise will eventually wane if there is a new movie out every year. The Force Awakens was a giant hit in large part because it was the long awaited sequel to Return of the Jedi.
However, this being Star Wars, it may be a scenario where there’s such thing as too much of a good thing.