Bob Iger agrees that Disney put out too muchStar Warsmaterial “too fast.” The Disney CEO is out promoting his upcoming memoir entitled The Ride of a Lifetime. For Iger, and anyone looking at his story from afar, it’s pretty amazing that he is in the position he is today. It’s hard to find anyone that knows him to say a bad thing about him, which is pretty rare when you have as much power as Iger does. Getting George Lucas to fork over theStar Warsrights or getting Ike Perlmutter to give up Marvel Studios is not something anyone should take lightly.
While Marvel Studios is currently flourishing, Lucasfilm saw a bit of a dip with the release of Rian Johnson’sThe Last Jediand thenSolo: A Star Wars Storyless than six months afterwards. While Johnson’s movie was still able to earn over $1 billion globally, it is also one of the most divisive movies of the entire franchise. But, withThe Force Awakens,Rogue One, andSoloall coming together so fast, it was only a matter of time before theStar Warsfatigue set in.Bob Igerexplains.
“I just think that we might’ve put a little bit too much in the marketplace too fast. I think the storytelling capabilities of the company are endless because of the talent we have at the company, and the talent we have at the company is better than it’s ever been, in part because of the influx of people from Fox.”
Solo received mixed reviewsupon its release, but fans have started to come around to it now that it’s been out for over a year. Even Ron Howard, who was brought on to finish the movie at the last minute, believes thatStar Warsfatigue was the reason for the movie not living up to box office expectations. It was a lot of material in record time, but there was even more lined up behind-the-scenes, which started to make diehard fans skeptical.
BeforeSolohit theaters, there were rumblings about the long-awaitedBoba Fettmovie and theObi-Wan Kenobi movietoo. However, those projects, along with others that were in active development, were put on the back burner. Disney and Lucasfilm had to go back to the drawing board and figure out where to go next. They seem to be ready to slow down, but there are still quite a bit of projects coming out in the next few years.
Instead of theObi-Wan Kenobimovie, we’re getting aDisney+ streaming seriesstarring Ewan McGregor. Jon Favreau has the live-actionStar WarsseriesThe Mandaloriandropping in November, and J.J. Abrams is closing out the Skywalker saga on the big screen with this year’sThe Rise of Skywalker. After that, there will be break on the big screen asGame of Thronesshowrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff prepare their own trilogy. Rian Johnson is also still developing his own trilogy too and there’s theRogue Oneprequel series for Disney+. The interview with Bob Iger was originally conducted byThe New York Times.
