Lucasfilm had ambitious plans for its slate of Star Wars movies. With Disney co-piloting, the studio planned to release at least one Star Wars movie a year, beginning with a brand new trilogy and then switching to a spinoff centered on a beloved character, place or event from the series, and maybe even exploring new facets and worlds. The spinoffs have so far happened every other year, but now that Solo: Star Wars Story has not been a huge success, that strategy may no longer be the plan. As Solo has slowed down at the box office, we've heard rumors that spinoffs were being put on hold until Lucasfilm could readjust its strategy. However, there are reasons fans should continue being excited about the Star Wars spinoffs, no matter what shape or form they take.
Although people including Ron Howard have called the aforementioned rumors into question, the effect of those rumors is that some Star Wars fans have begun to worry about the spinoffs that were allegedly in-development, such as the Boba Fett movie and long rumored Obi-Wan spinoff. It can be hard to remain optimistic when a spinoff like Solo: A Star Wars Story, a genuinely entertaining movie, lands with such a thud in theaters. Speaking of Solo, which replaced directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord with Ron Howard during production, the latter director reportedly reshot a lot of scenes in the movie, pushing back the filming schedule in a mad dash to make the May release date, a push that cost money. Despite fairly good reviews, if box office is how you judge success, then it probably wasn't worth the reshoots, as the movie has been underperforming, so far bringing in a little over $203,000 domestically. Well, I'd actually argue the recent troubles could be exactly what these spinoffs need to get fans excited again.
One reason you really should be excited about what is to come is that there's a lot of lessons in failure. For one thing, Lucasfilm has learned that Star Wars isn't bulletproof. Just because a studio makes a movie about a fan-favorite character, that's not a promise that the movie will rake in over half a billion dollars. Most people love Han Solo, but you have to do more to justify a movie's existence other than say, 'Well, people really like Han Solo.' In this regard, it might mean that Lucasfilm has to put a little extra thought into crafting these movies or deciding which characters to focus on. Star Wars has no shortage of interesting characters to choose from, including plenty who weren't a part of the main circle. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is somewhat of an example of this, but the movie is still deeply tied to its origins (CGI Leia, pointless R2-D2 and C-3PO cameo) rather than being wholly expansive. It also means that Lucasfilm may have learned not to throw more money at a problem, as Solo could have been a more modest success if its budget had not been so bloated.
One of the most intriguing critiques of the concept of the spinoff films is that they don't do enough to play in the greater Star Wars sandbox. For example, making a movie about Obi-Wan isn't exactly a big leap of imagination. Star Wars is a lot bigger than just a tight group of the main characters, and part of what made people excited in the first place was the unlimited potential for stories. There's still every reason to be excited for that. Rogue One, despite being very tied to the nostalgia of A New Hope, was made up almost entirely of new characters. Sure, we can still be excited for Obi-Wan and Boba (it's not like we wouldn't want to see those!), but the sky's really the limit, here. You could go anywhere from the origins of the Jedi to a lost tale from the Clone Wars to Max Rebo trying to get that platinum record. That's really cool to think about and it's still a strong reason to be excited.
Another reason to be excited about more spinoffs is the talent involved. Just because the last movie hit an obstacle in the director department doesn't mean that every single one after will as well. In the case of the Boba Fett movie, Lucasfilm has recruited James Mangold, who's coming in hot after his Oscar-nominated superhero movie, Logan. Not to knock the previous Wolverine movie (which Mangold also directed), but Mangold seriously stepped up his game and came this close to making a superhero movie that won a big Oscar (other than the blockbuster standard VFX and makeup). Now, this same guy could direct Boba Fett, a fan-favorite character who people have been clamoring to see again on the big screen. We don't what other talents the studio is looking at for other spinoff films, but Star Wars does make an effort to pick interesting names.
Lucasfilm is definitely making more spinoffs at some point, whether those be about Boba Fett, Obi-Wan or others. In fact, we know there's a whole new trilogy heading to Disney's streaming service, although that doesn't address what will or won't happen with the standalone spinoffs. All in all, fans shouldn't let any of this bad press stop any of their excitement about the future. There's every hope that the studio is making efforts to correct itself and find the answer to why things haven't been going so smoothly this summer. Plus, people have been talking about a Boba Fett movie for ages, so there's always that.
