YET AT THE movies — the place where it all began — Star Wars is in fl ux. With
the impending home entertainment release of Episode IX, fans can fi nally
enjoy the Skywalker saga in its nine-chapter entirety; even if the fi nal entry has
generated brickbats and bouquets in roughly equal measure, it’s a binge older
fans would never have thought possible. But after that, the slate is as barren as
the Dune Sea on Tatooine; there’s neither a locked-down release date, a fi lm set
for production or even a title on a slide at a Disney expo.
Game Of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss jumped ship
from a post-The Rise Of Skywalker trilogy for a deal at Netfl ix reputedly
worth $200 million. There is a Kevin Feige-shepherded project somewhere
in the offi ng. Taika Waititi, who directed the fi nal ep of The Mandalorian,
is being courted but his dance card is currently full (Next Goal Wins, Thor:
Love And Thunder, a Time Bandits TV series). On the publicity push for
Knives Out, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson confi rmed he is still in
talks with Lucasfi lm about his proposed trilogy, but the announcement of a
second Benoit Blanc mystery may delay that — perhaps he can do a Star
Wars/Knives Out crossover where Blanc investigates the murder of a
Rodian by a smuggler in highly desirable knitwear?
While Disney are ploughing ahead with multiple Marvel fi lms every
year — four are pencilled in for 2021 — they have put the brakes on Star
Wars. “I have said publicly that I think we made and released too many
fi lms over a short period of time,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told the BBC last
year. “I just think that there’s something so special about a Star Wars fi lm,
and less is more.”
Why superheroes are ever-present and Jedi need to be rationed is still
not entirely clear, but Star Wars’ fi ve fi lms in four years
may not only have rubbed away some of the sparkle but played into rushed
decisions — TROS editor Maryann Brandon bemoaned an accelerated
schedule, admitting, “We were defi nitely still trying to fi gure out a lot
of stuff ” — that aff ected the fi nished fi lms.
With the Skywalker saga completed, the next fi lm is rumoured to be
scheduled for December 2022, but that seems fanciful. Iger’s idea of a
slowdown, possibly to regroup and reset, may be frustrating, but Star Wars
fans are well-versed in fi nding ways to sate their passion in between movies
— 16 years between the Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy, ten years
between Prequel Trilogy and Sequel Trilogy. They will wait. ❯