American actors Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford on the set of “Star Wars: A New Hope,” written, directed and produced by Georges Lucas.
Sunset Boulevard | Corbis Historical | Getty Images
The Force stays robust with the Star Wars franchise.
Despite not releasing a theatrical film since 2019, Star Wars has been named the top film franchise of 2023 by Fandom, the world’s largest platform for leisure followers.
The top title for Star Wars comes as Disney has been strategically rebuilding the franchise, stalling its cinema presence in favor of long-form television content on its streaming platform Disney+ in addition to different storytelling by way of video video games, comedian books, novels, digital actuality and even a short-lived hotel experience in Florida.
“The Star Wars model has no peer relating to the unprecedented goodwill, cultural ubiquity, character mythology and sheer revenue-generating energy achieved throughout most each vertical in the leisure ecosystem,” mentioned Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Fandom’s top 10 film franchises of 2023
- Star Wars
- Disney
- Harry Potter
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe
- The DC Extended Universe
- The Hunger Games
- Jurassic Park
- Dune
- James Bond
- Avatar
Source: Fandom
Fandom’s scoring is predicated on 5 metrics: what number of content material pages the franchise has on Fandom’s website; rankings from critics and followers; how typically the franchise is represented in the actual world by way of conventions and fan occasions; cultural relevance to those that usually are not core to the fan base; and the quantity of new content material from the franchise to maintain curiosity.
Star Wars’ No.1 rating means that Disney’s revitalization of the model, which took a hit in the wake of a sequel trilogy for the films, is working. Disney seems at No. 2 on the record, representing its animated movies, and its Marvel and Avatar franchises additionally make the minimize.
Disney’s success with Star Wars can even supply a blueprint to different film franchises which are in the course of or restarting or evolving — specifically Marvel and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Harry Potter and DC Studios.
A short while in the past, in your native movie show
After buying Lucasfilm in 2012, Disney went straight to work, cooking up new theatrical content material from the Star Wars model. “The Force Awakens” arrived in theaters in 2015 and immediately recaptured fan curiosity worldwide. The film snapped up greater than $2 billion globally and have become the foundation for billion-dollar theme park expansions at each Disneyland and Disney World.
However, it shortly grew to become clear that Disney did not have a singular plan when it got down to make its new trilogy of Star Wars movies. The narrative thread that was speculated to hyperlink the trilogy collectively was improvised and resulted in three movies that are not cohesive and riddled with plot holes.
Rey and Kylo Ren face off in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
Disney
Each film appears to be a complete departure from the earlier one. If 2015’s “The Force Awakens” was criticized for being an excessive amount of of a mirror of the unique trilogy, 2017’s “The Last Jedi” was criticized for doing the precise reverse. “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019 undid main story traces from its predecessor and sidelined main characters. Emperor Palpatine, who was killed by Darth Vader in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” returned — someway.
In between every film in the sequel trilogy, Disney launched a film that harkened again to an vital plot level from previous Star Wars movies. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” which adopted the rebels who stole the Death Star plans given to Princess Leia in the unique “Star Wars,” was typically well-received throughout the board when it hit theaters in 2018, however two years later, “Solo,” which centered on Han Solo’s origin, fell flat with critics and lots of in the fan neighborhood.
“At the time, Disney’s technique was to primarily release one new Star Wars film theatrically annually,” mentioned Peter Csathy, founder and chair of advisory agency Creative Media. “But annually introduced diminishing field workplace returns.”
A brand new technology of Star Wars movies at the international field workplace
- “The Force Awakens” (2015) — $2.07 billion
- “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016) — $1.05 billion
- “The Last Jedi” (2017) — $1.33 billion
- “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (2018) — $393.1 million
- “The Rise of Skywalker” (2019) — $1.077 billion
Source: Comscore
While “Solo” was the solely true field workplace flop, Disney determined to droop its theatrical Star Wars releases and regroup. It was already seeing success from the first season of TV spinoff “The Mandalorian,” which launched in late 2019. The collection was proof that Star Wars can strike a stability between nostalgia and innovation — and that the franchise did not should be in theaters to thrive.
“The Mouse House pivoted to a technique of shortage for the huge display screen, whereas fleshing out the characters and storylines on TV and introducing them — and the complete Star Wars universe — to new generations with new viewing habits, primarily going the place the viewers was going,” Csathy mentioned. “This, in flip, builds anticipation and buzz for future primary marquee occasions at a theater close to you.”
Rebuilding an empire
Disney is not set to release one other Star Wars film in cinemas till 2026. But, in crafting its televised Star Wars content material, it’s rebuilding goodwill inside its established neighborhood and drawing in new followers.
Overall, the live-action Star Wars collection — “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett,” “Andor,” “Kenobi” and “Ahsoka” — have been well-received by critics and followers alike.
While these tales discover previous Star Wars tales, both harkening again to characters seen in previous installments or exploring a piece of the Star Wars timeline, and are unlikely to hook up with future theatrical entrants, they supply moviegoers with a sense of cohesion and high quality.
Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano in “The Mandalorian” on Disney+.
Disney
In animation, Disney launched a ultimate season in the “Clone Wars” saga, the place fan-favorite Ahsoka Tano debuted, and continued following a quantity of clone troopers from this period in “The Bad Batch.” Additionally, by way of streaming, Disney has given audiences a number of alternative ways to observe Star Wars tales.
There’s “Tales of the Jedi,” which explored the backstories of Ahsoka and Count Dooku; “Young Jedi Adventures,” which caters to a preschool demographic; and “Visions,” a assortment of animated shorts from totally different genres and that includes totally different ranges of maturity.
In establishing such selection, Disney is entertaining its present fanbase and providing olive branches to newcomers of all ages.
“I feel that creators in these worlds have to search out methods to construct them and develop the audiences whereas ensuring that it does not skew an excessive amount of from what the core followers love about it,” mentioned Stephanie Fried, chief advertising and marketing officer at Fandom.
Another key for Disney has been parsing these collection out slowly over the course of a number of years.
“A crucial takeaway is that franchise theatrical releases want room to breathe,” mentioned Csathy. “We are seeing diminishing returns by the fast release schedule of the previous a number of years, and now there’s a broad realization that anticipation must construct for field workplace dynamite to ignite.” That, and the indisputable fact that none of these reveals are required viewing for future Star Wars tasks.
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and Alan Tudyk as Ok-2SO in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”
Disney | Lucasfilm
Disney discovered itself in a robust spot with its Marvel Cinematic Universe as a result of it started introducing key characters in its Marvel streaming reveals earlier than they appeared in theatrical tasks. This required followers to compensate for hours of tv content material to know what was taking place on the huge display screen.
While some viewers would possibly need to compensate for episodes of “Clone Wars” earlier than diving into “Ahsoka,” for instance, audiences may in lots of instances tune into these reveals without having to do any homework.
The studying curve
The classes Disney has discovered in revitalizing Star Wars are some that it may apply to a different struggling franchise, Marvel, and that Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC and Harry Potter universes might take to coronary heart as they embark on their very own refreshes.
At Marvel, life after “Avengers: Endgame” has been riddled with inconsistency and uncertainty. That has taken a toll on field workplace returns. “The Marvels” posted the worst opening of a MCU film ever in November, leaving the business and audiences questioning how Disney can save its personal superheroes.
Even Disney CEO Bob Iger has been publicly critical of the studio, saying on a number of events that Disney must be extra selective about which Marvel superheroes get sequel films and when to bring in fresh stories, particularly after Disney packed its streaming service with practically a dozen new reveals in simply three years.
Add to that the latest firing of Jonathan Majors, who was supposed to be the franchise’s next big villain Kang, after he was convicted of misdemeanor assault and harassment in mid-December. Disney now has to make a selection: Recast the function of Kang or fully alter its plans for the MCU.
Rival DC Studios, with a equally fervent fan base and related challenges, seems to be headed in the proper path, tapping James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad”) and long-time DC film producer Peter Safran as co-heads of the studio in late 2022.
The pair has since developed a 10-year plan to reinvigorate its franchises throughout TV and film, including fresh spins on Superman and Batman.
The story is way the identical at Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter franchise. After the wild success of the eight Harry Potter movies, Warner Bros. tapped creator J.Ok. Rowling to develop a five-film collection primarily based on “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a supplementary informational e book about the totally different creatures in the Harry Potter universe.
While the first film carried out effectively at the field workplace, producing greater than $800 million globally, the relaxation of the franchise noticed diminishing returns and demanding reception faltered.
Warner Bros. is because of release fourth and fifth installments of the collection, although it has offered few specifics. It additionally intends to remake the unique Harry Potter novels into a 10-season tv collection for the firm’s streaming platform Max, anticipated in 2025 or 2026.
Star Wars, in the meantime, is about to release two movies in 2026 — one in May and one in December — seven years after the final Star Wars film arrived in cinemas.
Disclosure: Comcast is the guardian firm of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of the Jurassic World movies.
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