Lucasfilm has put future Star Wars Story movies on hold, according to Collider. Both the recently announced Boba Fett movie, which was to be written and directed by James Mangold (Logan), and the rumored Obi-Wan film, are reportedly no longer planned at Lucasfilm. Instead, the studio is focusing on completing Episode IX, which is set to begin filming sometime this summer, as well as the next trilogy of films being developed by The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson.
This move comes just weeks after Solo: A Star Wars Story arrived in cinemas. Only the second Star Wars spinoff film, Solo has had a very tough time at the box office, making $341.9 million worldwide in its first four weeks. For comparison, Rogue One made $424 million four weeks in and went on to make a little over $1 billion total. At this point, it’s not expected that Solo will do anywhere near that sort of business.
It doesn’t help that Solo was in a tough spot even before the film dropped at the end of May. Not only did it hit cinemas just weeks after the release of major blockbusters Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2, but it also came mere months after the critically acclaimed but ultimately divisive The Last Jedi. Unlike the first three Disney Star Wars films, Solo occupied a traditional May summer slot, and one so close to two other movies that so obviously overshadowed it.
It begs the question: would Solo have performed better if it had been given a December slot like the other films and therefore given itself a bit of breathing room? Maybe, but as we explored here, Disney more than likely believes it has a bigger Christmas hit on its hands with Mary Poppins Returns.
There is still plenty of big-screen Star Wars on the way, including the aforementioned trilogy from Rian Johnson as well as a series of films being developed by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
More as we hear it…