Star Wars is slack, but the same cannot be said of Disney: the manufacturer, which has held the rights since 2012, is closing down – also thanks to the release of episode 9 of the saga that began in 1977 – an absolute record 2019, with over 10 billion in revenues (not yet counting the takings that Star Wars will make over the Christmas period) and a global market share that has risen to 25%. Therefore, the competition has been crushed (in second place, with a gap, there is Warner Bros with 9% followed by Universal with 7%), and this despite the lower number of films produced (13 against an average of twenty for the other houses) and the undeniable weakening of a brand, that of Luke Skywalker & C., which it bought 7 years ago for 4 billion dollars, is starting to show signs of slowing down at the box office.
A slowdown, moreover, was more than predictable, given that the Mickey Mouse house squeezed George Lucas's creature, churning out 5 episodes of the saga in recent years and ending up inflating the product. It is no coincidence that episode 7, released in 2015 and which marked the great return of Star Wars to the big screen, grossed over $2 billion at the box office, while for the film currently in theaters, “The Rise of Skywalker”, the expected performance is exactly half, 1 billion dollars. Already episode 8, in 2017, paid 35% less than the previous one (1,33 billion), not to mention the spinoff on Han Solo which saw the light a few months later and which was a real flop, collecting only 400 million.
For Disney, however, this is not a problem, or at least it is not, summing up the year that is about to end: although in decline in audience, Star Wars will still reach one billion in collections and will be the seventh film of the stable to do so. after Avengers: Endgame, the Lion King, Toy Story 4, Aladdin, Captain Marvel and most recently Frozen 2 – The Secret of Arendelle. This means that the house of Mickey easily hits the target: more than half of the films released in the calendar year have exceeded one billion in receipts. And for 2020, the Fox card, purchased in 2018, will be able to play: the films announced in the pipeline have therefore increased to 22, and there will be no Star Wars. The next episodes of the successful saga are expected in 2022, 2024 and 2026.
