This December, one of the most famous family sagas in movie history will see its story come to a close, when Star Wars: Episode IX tells the final tale of Anakin, Luke, Leia, and Ben Solo. But while the franchise has big plans for the future after saying goodbye to the Skywalker clan, Disney’s head honcho says they will take “a bit of a hiatus” before releasing another movie in the galaxy far, far away.
CEO Bob Iger told Bloomberg that Disney will “take a pause, some time, and reset” the Star Wars franchise after the highly anticipated Episode IX comes to theaters on December 20, 2019.
While some will be glad to hear this, and others will be disappointed, this news is not surprising. It comes at a time when many are discussing the possibility of “Star Wars fatigue,” an idea recently discussed by Mark Hamill himself. Also, last September Iger said plans to release a new movie every year were being scrapped, which seemed to be partly in response to Solo‘s disappointing box office.
However, even if it’s going to be a couple of years (or longer) until we get a new Star Wars film on the big screen, it won’t be that long. Both The Last Jedi‘s Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are developing separate new trilogies. And the franchise isn’t going to disappear even if it isn’t in theaters. Next year will see the release of the first live-action series set in the Star Wars universe, Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, and that will be followed by a live-action Cassian Andor series. Plus, the animated The Clone Wars will return for a final year, and Galaxy’s Edge will soon open at Disney’s parks in California and Florida.
Star Wars is taking a hiatus from movie screens, but not from anywhere else.
Images: Walt Disney