Before I begin, I want to apologize for not being as active I probably should have been. I’ve been dealing with my father’s passing last month and it’s been really tough just to get motivated to do anything. That being said, I appreciate the people who been patient with me over the course of the month, so thank you. For this post, I’m bringing you a couple of interesting pieces of news from a Galaxy Far, Far Away. The first of which is apparently any upcoming Star Wars spin-off films are being put on hold. Why? Well, I’m guessing, but the performance of the Han Solo film may have had something to do with it. The film only garnered a little over 100 million dollars on it’s opening weekend against an apparent 300 million dollar budget. This would make Solo the worst-performing Star Wars film. I’m not entirely surprised. The production of the Han Solo was fraught with problems including the firing of directors Lord and Miller with most of the film completed. They brought in Ron Howard to do extensive re-shoots to “fix” the issues made by Lord and Miller, but in doing so, nearly doubled the film’s budget. As we’ve seen with movies like John Carter, when you have to do extensive re-shoots that balloon the budget by at least double if not more, the film is going to suffer in many ways and almost always bombs at the box office. The truth of the matter is, is that I was not actually expecting Disney to step in unless Episode IX failed at the box office, but it seems like Disney is going to take any chances with the final episode in this new trilogy. So, for anybody expecting a Boba Fett or Obi-wan Kenobi film: You’re probably not going to get them any time soon, at least if my sources and various news sources are to be believed. My opinion on this, is that again, I’m not surprised. When Disney announced the spin-off films that were going to be released between the episodic films, I was very doubtful that it was going to last very long. Rogue One was fantastic in my opinion, despite its apparent issues behind-the-scenes. I didn’t even hate the Han Solo film, I just wasn’t impressed with it and felt that it was not a film that needed to happen. There were other stories out there that they could have focused on instead of worrying about origin stories for classic characters and events. The audience doesn’t really want that, and Solo’s performance is evidence of that. I honestly want original stories in the Star Wars universe. It can be done, if Disney and Lucasfilm are willing to take certain risks.
Speaking of risks, according to sites such as Star Wars News Net, Disney and Lucasfilm are no longer going to be taking risks on unproven directors. The interpretation of this bit is that Disney and Lucasfilm only want to deal with directors who know how to handle a large budget, like J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson and Ron Howard. One one hand, this makes good business sense, as unproven directors are not predictable and don’t necessarily have experience in dealing with massive amounts of money involved in making films like these. On the other hand, you need to look at where Star Wars came from. When George Lucas finally completed and released the original film in 1977, most film companies were not willing to take chances with him and his film. 20th Century Fox decided to step up and take chance with Mr. Lucas and Star Wars. The rest is film-making history. So, I understand Disney’s trepidation when it comes to unknown directors. I get it, but if you’re not willing to take a chance and let somebody do something with it, you will end up with a disaster like Solo. You need to have a little bit of faith that a new director could bring something new to the table. I’ll be honest, I would have really liked to see what Lord and Miller could’ve done with Solo if they had been allowed to finish it on their terms. Would it still have ended up flopping at the box office? We’ll never know.
In conclusion, I don’t think that Disney’s going to wait around and see if Episode IX fails at the box office or not. They’re doing everything right now to make sure that doesn’t happen. They also want to make sure that Rian Johnson’s new trilogy has a shot at being made. Again, the fate of Johnson’s movies will depend on Episode IX’s performance. I could be wrong, but it seems like Solo basically slapped Lucasfilm in the face with a force-sensitive fish and made them step back and realize that maybe releasing a Star Wars film every year wasn’t the best of ideas. I’m a huge fan of Star Wars, as I’ve said so many times before, and I really want each and every film in the franchise to succeed, but periodically one needs to fail so that Lucasfilm and Disney can do better. Solo was a mistake. It never should have been made in the first place, but I hope that it is a learning experience for Disney and that their focus on Episode IX will lead to a movie that people will remember in a positive light for years to come. That’s my hope. As Yoda once put it, “It’s difficult to see; always in motion is the future.”