With both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars franchise under Disney's belt and showing no signs of slowing down, spirits must be awfully high at the house of mouse. Disney CEO Bob Iger took the stage at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference today to give a little update on the status of both franchises and, surprise, surprise, they're going to keep both going well into the future. The Disney chief had similar meetings with the heads of both franchises in order to map out the next few years of movies and beyond.
I had a meeting yesterday with Kathy Kennedy and we mapped out — well, we reviewed — the ‘Star Wars’ plans that we have ’til 2020. We have movies in development for ‘Star Wars’ ’til then, and we started talking about what we’re going to do in 2021 and beyond. So, she’s not just making a ‘Star Wars’ movie, she’s making a ‘Star Wars’ universe, of sorts.
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The next STAR WARS flick, ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY, will hit theaters on December 16, 2016 and Iger told the audience that he'd seen the movie and added that "it’s really interesting in terms of ‘Star Wars’ storytelling. Star Wars’ has only been told as a saga, and this is a moment in time…we love what we’ve seen." As the first STAR WARS film to follow STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, expectations are high that it will be a box-office success, but Iger isn't expecting it to match THE FORCE AWAKENS' $2 billion, adding that "we never felt it would do the level that Force Awakens did.”
As for the rest of the STAR WARS franchise, we've got STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII on December 15, 2017, the Han Solo spin-off on May 25, 2018, STAR WARS: EPISODE IX in 2019 and another STAR WARS spin-off, which recently hired a writer, in 2020. It will be interesting to see how they wrap up the sequel trilogy and which of the characters, if any, will carry on to the next trilogy, either way, most of us will likely be in the ground before this STAR WARS train comes to a stop. As for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iger's meeting seems to indicate that it will enjoy a similar longevity.
We had a similar meeting with Marvel a week-and-a-half ago to plot [those films] out, where we’ve got movies in either development or production — some nearing completion — through the end of this decade. [There], we too are beginning to talk about what do we do the next decade, and so on.
Long story short, neither the STAR WARS nor Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise will be coming to an end any time soon. There's money to be made!
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