We did not get a title for the next Star Wars movie during yesterday’s Disney shareholders call. There were rumblings that such a thing might happen, but the big “news” was Bob Iger reassuring folks that Disney would still make R-rated movies (under the Fox banner or otherwise) once they took over the studio behind Deadpool, Alien, and Predator. That shouldn’t have been a question. A big reason the Mouse House bought Fox was to get a foothold in the kind of grown-up fare that Fox, box office struggles in a Netflix-and-chill era notwithstanding, has specialized in over the last several years.

I’m guessing J.J. Abrams and friends noticed the success of Marvel baiting the Internet with an unrevealed Avengers  4 title for over four years. The project was announced in October of 2014 with the first teaser debuting in early December of 2018. Thus, I’d expect Episode IX to get a title right along with its first teaser during this year’s Star Wars Celebration in mid-April. We didn’t get a title for Star Wars 9 because we didn’t need one, because Disney can get the same free publicity from speculative posts. Moreover, Disney’s big Christmas release is both incredibly important and utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

That’s because no matter how it performs in December, Walt Disney will face the same challenge: How do they make general audiences care about Star Wars movies that aren’t explicitly connected to those first three Star Wars movies (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?) and explicitly tied into the saga of the Skywalker family? Rogue One and the George Lucas prequels were, well, prequels to the first three Star Wars movies and the last three Disney episodes were 30-years-later sequels to Return of the Jedi complete with the return of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.


After this, presuming Disney really does give Rian Johnson his own disconnected trilogy and let the Game of Thrones guys make their own Star Wars movies, to say nothing of Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian episodic series on Disney+, Star Wars will face a unique challenge. What will general moviegoers think about Star Wars movies that are mostly disconnected from the world, story, and characters of George Lucas’ original trilogy? To what extent did folks flock to The Force Awakens specifically because it promised the return of Hamill, Ford, and Fisher?

Since Episode IX will apparently close the book on the Skywalker/Solo story that began in 1977, Disney must go back to the proverbial drawing board no matter how well this ninth Star Wars episode performs. We know that right now, in 2019 (and beyond), merely offering a relatively high-quality mega-budget sci-fi fantasy actioner isn’t enough to get people into the theater. So, without the explicit ties to the Darth Vader saga, without explicit ties to the defining original trilogy characters, will folks still consider Star Wars movies to be worth trekking out to a theater to see? We don’t know.

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Maybe it will eventually become a Pixar or MCU-like brand, where the Lucasfilm franchise is big and trusted enough where people are excited just because it’s a Star Wars movie. Or maybe, after the balance is returned to the Force, audiences will look at a new Star Wars movie as little different from the next Alita: Battle Angel or Jupiter Ascending. We don’t know what the next Star Wars movies will be after Episode IX, either because Lucasfilm is being as tip-lipped as Marvel is about their respective post-Endgame plans or because they are taking time to figure out what the next phase of Star Wars should look like.

Also of note, the Fox purchase gives them some time, especially if James Cameron’s Avatar 2 opens as planned on December 18, 2020. If the next bunch of Avatar sequels breaks out, then Disney has the option of essentially alternating Star Wars and Avatar every Christmas. That will allow them to maybe make just one Star Wars movie every two years, which will allow for the brand to maintain a certain event status. If Disney can stick to Cameron’s planned sequel schedule which puts Avatar 3 on December 17, 2021, that buys Lucasfilm time until December 2022 to figure out their next play.

In a more conventional world, we wouldn’t have gotten a new Star Wars for 2-3 years anyway. The original six movies opened three-year schedules (1977, 1980 and 1983 and then 1999, 2002 and 2005). But now three years is enough time for Sony to call it quits on the Amazing Spider-Man franchise and be back in theaters with Spider-Man: Homecoming. I have no idea how audiences will react to Star Wars movies that are relative originals which just happen to take place in the Star Wars universe. But Disney and Lucasfilm have some time to figure that out if Avatar 2 does its job.

But for now, all eyes are on Star Wars Episode IX, where J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and friends will attempt to tie up the Rey/Kylo saga in a way that theoretically pleases the nostalgic fans and the “deconstruction > nostalgia” folks. I imagine whatever they do is going to upset or displease 50% of the fans anyway, so I hope they just do whatever they want. It is also the equivalent of a lame deck entry in the franchise. Whether Episode IX sinks or soars, Star Wars will face the same fundamental challenge of thriving outside of its core narrative and sans its marquee characters.