If you’ve listened to the podcast, you’ve heard me sort of beat a dead horse saying “Disney will eventually copy the blueprint they’ve put forth with Marvel, and star delivering multiple Star Wars movies a year”.  I often wait for Chris my co-host to say “not this again”.  But given moves they announced last week, it looks like this might actually happen in the next few years.
Here’s the thing, money drives the movie industry, every industry for that matter. Â With Marvel they have just released the ultra fun Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, will be co-releasing Spider-man Homecoming with Sony in July, and in the fall they will be releasing Thor Ragnarok. Â With Star Wars, we have the “Skywalker Saga”, they have introduced stand alone stories to their cinematic universe with Rogue One (which technically has two Skywalkers), and are currently filming the first of three Han Solo origins films. Â Unless they break the cycle after Episode IX, we will be seeing another chapter in the Saga every two years, much like the Avengers were originally laid out before the upcoming Infinity War movies, and then we’ll see the origin and stand alone films add in between.
If they follow the current pattern, it would take them 6Â years to release the entire Han Solo series, when would they fit in the rumored Obi-Wan series with Ewan McGregor? McGregor is currently 46, given the Han movies, the stand alones, and new chapters in the saga, we would be looking at a 2025 start to the Obi-Wan series, when he’s 54, and say that’s also three movies, he’d be 60 by the time they’re done. Â So it only makes sense they add summer movie to their schedule, and they have just taken steps to open this up when scheduling Indy V.
As per Screen Rant, Â Disney has just shifted their July 10th, 2020 film to August 7th, 2020 in order to slot in the new Indiana Jones movie. Â Disney currently has official dates set for Episode VIII, and Episode IX, December 15th, 2017, and May 24th, 2019. Â The latter date stands out because Episodes VII and Rogue One also were released in December. Â Will we see two Star Wars films in 2019? Perhaps they’re just shifting the franchise back to May releases as the Han Solo movie is slated for release on May 25th, 2018. Â Historically every movie of the franchise, sans Empire Strikes back which was released in October, were all May releases.
We shall see how it all plays, but I have a feeling we’re going to see them moving stories forward, while also dipping in the past, all in the same year.  Much like Rogue One was a experiment to see if stand alone stories would fly, the Han Solo movie will be a launching pad to see if stand alone series revolving around a classic character will work also.  They have the much rumored Obi-Wan films, and the Boba Fett film that has since been put on hold, but just imagine, a series based on Vader, Yoda, or even newer characters like Poe Dameron, or Rey.  No different than seeing the individual components of the Avengers, then seeing them in stand alone films, either telling an origins story, or having a character team up, to tell something new, much like the forthcoming Ant-Man and Wasp, and the aforementioned Spider-man Homecoming which will see Peter Parker team up with Iron Man.
In any event, it is an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, it is an exciting time to be a geek.
