Depending on who you asked, having a new Star Wars movie each year was either a gift or a curse springing from Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm. Undoubtedly there has been more content than ever, all of it doing massive business in keeping with the franchise, right up until last year’s disappointing Solo: A Star Wars Story. Since then we’ve heard Lucasfilm was slowing down on Star Wars projects, but now Disney CEO Bob Iger nudges that plan a bit further.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Iger says the reason no Star Wars films have been announced is that a brief “hiatus” is in order following Episode 9…
“We have not announced any specific plans for movies [after ‘Episode IX’]. There are movies in development, but we have not announced them. We will take a pause, some time, and reset,” he said, “because the Skywalker saga comes to an end with this ninth movie. There will be other ‘Stars Wars’ movies, but there will be a bit of a hiatus.”
The timing makes sense. The latest trilogy wraps up this December, and it’ll be some time before Rian Johnson is ready with his movies, which are expected to center on brand new characters completely separate from the Skywalker Saga. Plus, there’s a series of films in the works from Game of Thrones creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff which we still know very little about.
That probably means no Star Wars on the big screen through 2021, at least, with Disney+ the only place to get original live-action content. That’s convenient. Maybe this will curb that “Star Wars fatigue” Mark Hamill was so worried about.
