Rogue One and Solo were part of the film series “A Star Wars Story.” The first film bolstered the idea of continuing this series, but the second movie did not go as well. Will Disney and LucasFilm revive this film series? It seems unlikely, but there is still a chance.
Table of Contents
Will “A Star Wars Story” Be Revived?
A primary reason Disney is unlikely to revive “A Star Wars Story” is the lackluster performance of Solo, released in May 2018. As recapped here, soon after Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the plan was to launch “spin-off” or “anthology” films that would come out in between the main movies. These anthologies were meant to stand on their own but could be extended into a series.
Rogue One did well, grossing over $1 billion worldwide, but Solo did a comparative nose dive at the box office. This Star Wars Story movie made less than $400 million worldwide. It also ran over budget and suffered creative disgruntlement fallouts. Taken together, this spin-off halted Disney’s plans.
The Obi-Wan Kenobi series was initially planned to be a film trilogy. As writer Stuart Beattie indicated, he pitched Lucasfilm the idea when “they were busy with Rogue One and Solo: A Star War Story.” Hence, a Kenobi movie would have fit right into this series.
However, Disney shifted away from this trilogy idea and other spin-off movies because of their disappointment with the returns of Solo. This decision has prompted recent speculation about what the Kenobi trilogy would have covered and how it could have been a success.
A similar development occurred with a potential Boba Fett movie. In 2023, screenwriter Simon Kinberg specified how a film project “centered on Boba Fett” was dropped by Disney. This too reflected the move away from the big screen following Solo and Covid-19.
That the small-screen Boba Fett series garnered mixed or unfavorable reviews did not help the situation either. If the Book of Boba Fett was taken as “contrived, confusing, and dull,” then the prospect of reviving a big picture, bigger budget version does not bode well.
Is There Hope for “A Star Wars Story”?
Yet, Rogue One’s success provides some hope for the idea of still using this film series. Some fans suggest it could even appear in The Mandalorian & Grogu movie. That may be true. Not much is known about this film scheduled for 2026, but perhaps it and Dave Filoni’s The Mandalorian movie are candidates to push the series forward.
Some recent articles contend that this series could be the answer “to Disney’s woes” at the box office and small screen. We may well agree that “cancelling these anthology films” because of Solo “was a rash decision” and could be “partially responsible” for Disney’s current predicament.
We may also defend Solo and argue, as this article does, that it actually “didn’t ruin Star Wars for fans like some might believe.” The movie may have suffered more from timing, instead of story, as it was released six months after The Last Jedi. We could recognize how Episode VIII provoked a fan backlash that undermined Solo.
Beyond The Mandalorian & Grogu, we may see an Ahsoka or Bad Batch movie step into the anthology framework. Darth Vader would also be a starring candidate, and, just maybe, we could revisit Obi-Wan.
“A Star Wars Story” Film Series
While it is likely we will not witness an immediate return of the “A Star Wars Story” film series, the possibility lingers. Given the current fluctuating state of fan approval of Disney productions, we could see a spin-off with that subtitle reappearing, but probably not immediately.