Anna Daniels
As of this writing, no decision has been made as to whether the Dillard and Owens-backed Star Wars film will see a silver-screen launch like the flicks that came before it, or if it will be a streaming exclusive. There are benefits and drawbacks of both options.
On the one hand, bringing a Star Wars movie to theaters is a grand affair that almost always results in big box office bucks. It’s a cinematic event fans get hyped up for, and the world waits with bated breath to find out what happens in the latest chapter of the decades-old space-faring franchise. But in giving a Star Wars movie a massive platform upon which it can potentially succeed, there exists the chance for the film to disappoint on a much larger scale — and Lucasfilm has faced that kind of metaphorical face-planting three times in the last three years.
First, there was the now-infamous outrage over The Last Jedi, which was released in December 2017 and has continued to create conversations to this day. Then came the underwhelming critical and financial performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Alden Ehrenreich-led Han Solo origin story flick that hit a sour note in May 2018. Most recently was the somewhat unexpected contention over The Rise of Skywalker, which received mixed reviews and sparked discussions about fan-service and the ways in which filmmakers should wrap up trilogies.
That considered, perhaps streaming is the better option for a film like this, one that’s apparently not an entry into the main franchise, which is going on a brief hiatus following The Rise of Skywalker. Disney+ is already home to one of the greatest pieces of original Star Wars content that Disney and Lucasfilm have ever put out: the live-action series The Mandalorian. The platform also just rolled out the highly anticipated seventh and final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a series fans helped bring back to life after it was cut short after its sixth season. Two more Star Wars shows — an Obi-Wan Kenobi series and a Rogue One prequel centered on Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor — will also launch on Disney+ in the future. Naturally, there’s the disadvantage of a studio not earning revenue through ticket sales when it distributes a film solely on a streamer, but history has shown that in the Star Wars universe, streaming titles can definitely hold their own.
Check back with Looper for more information on the new Star Wars movie as additional details become available.
Written by: Looper
