The latest movies of star wars saga in the cinema they were a hit for the franchise. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017), directly angered fans, especially with director Rian Johnson (“Looper”), who exaggerated when building something new. And the film was seen as a disregard for the history created by George Lucas 45 years ago.
The return of JJ Abrams two years later, at the head of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019), did not improve performance. The film was the seventh most viewed of the year: a lackluster performance for the story’s conclusion. And if you add to that “Han Solo” (2018) had been a direct box office failure, with just US $ 393.2 million worldwide collection, disney concerns about the future of Star Wars were not unwarranted.
Performance
The entertainment giant bought Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion, including the “Star Wars” franchise, but also the Indiana Jones saga, among many others. And since then, the main profits have come from theme parks (20.3 billion dollars in 2018 it was the record), brand extensions for toys, clothing and another hundred products, and video games.
But Lucasfilm had found it difficult to produce successful new extensions beyond the animated series. “The Last Jedi” barely brought in $620 million in the United States and Canada, and $712.5 million in the rest of the world. And “The Rise of Skywalker” was underperforming: $1.074 million at its global box office.
Watch out for apathy towards the latest products, Disney seated the heads of the team at the table currently chaired by Kathleen Kennedy (a producer close to Steven Spielberg since “ET”), and concluded that the strategy was to go back to the basics, to the essence of the story. and under the command of Jon Favreau, director of the “Ironman” saga for Marvel, a series was thought to serve for the launch of Disney+: “The Mandalorian”.
The success of its two brilliant seasons (the premiere of the second was seen by a million households in the United States alone, improving performance by 73% of the first season), added to the captivating finale of the animated series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, and the celebrated beginning of “Star Wars: The bad batch”, as well as the applauded debut of “The Book of Boba Fett” (with a 83% positive reviews), proved that the saga devised by Lucas still has a hopeful future ahead of it if it is in the right hands.
Equipment
Seconded by the talented Dave Filoni (creator of “Star Wars: Bad Remittance” and “Star Wars Rebels”, and director of “Clone Wars”), Jon Favreau knew how to coordinate a team of guest directors -and accredited fans- of the stature by Taika Waititi, who brought new stories to life while making all possible nods to the fandom.
Inspired by Boba Fett, the bounty hunter who is one of the favorite characters in the saga, despite his short lines, they devised a new mercenary: Din Djarin, the Mandalorian who embodies Pedro Pascal, and that it will have a third season in 2022.
And not only that, they spawned one of the most lovable characters in the “Star Wars” universe: Gorgu, the “Baby” Yoda which opens up the possibility of reincarnations in “the Force”, the philo-Buddhist religion on which the story of Lucas is based.
It is that in “Star Wars” nobody dies definitively. Until boba fett, who had been eaten by a gigantic sandworm in “Return of the Jedi”, managed to survive. And he resurfaces after an appearance in “The Mandalorian” with his own series: played by Temuera Morrison, who had played Jango Fett, Boba’s father, in “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith”.
One more nod to the fans who had already loved the climax of the second season of “The Mandalorian”, linking perfectly with the original saga.
“’The Book of Boba Fett‘ is separate from the third season of ‘The Mandalorian,’ and takes us to Jabba the Hutt’s palace on Tatooine, claimed by Boba Fett and Fennec Shand, taking advantage of the vacancy following Bib Fortuna’s brush with death,” Favreau explained. the series that recently premiered on Disney +.
Projects
“Then we will go to the production of season 3 of ‘The Mandalorian’, with the main character we know and love played by Pedro Pascal”, added Favreau, who delegated the direction to Robert Rodriguez, the Mexican who is probably one of the best in the world when it comes to recreating the spirit of classic westerns, here space-inspired (together they have a new project about desert gangsters up their sleeves).
Is that “Star Wars” has in its gene that gunslinger stories cocktail (the Mandalorian is of course) interspersed with those of the ronin of medieval japan, in which the legend of the Jedi swordsmen is inspired. As can be seen in “Star Wars: Visions”, the reinterpretation commissioned by Lucasfilm to various anime studios (Kamikaze Douga, Studio Colores, Geno Studio, Kinema Citrus, Production IG, Science SARU and Studio Trigger) of the “Star Wars” universe, which resulted in nine original stories that were published on September 22, 2021.
Short films that offer a new perspective on the creation of characters and subplots, opening a infinite range of possibilities beyond the revivals, such as Boba Fett, or what will be the great bet of Disney + for this 2022: the series of Obi-Wan Kenobischeduled for the first half of the year.
by RN
