Disney Over Milk

In the midst of talking Warner Brothers and their app, it slipped past me about Disney last week. With their Plus app, they have a lot of plans set up. They also have a lot of questions on what could happen with their movies. This includes a new Houcs Pocus sequel and a new Sister Act sequel. Remakes on films like Willow and Three Men and Baby. All of this courtesy of Cnet. There's some other stuff hitting soon like Soul from Pixar and Hamilton. But that's not the main focus.

Disney is trying to do their best while still in this pandemic. But milking their Marvel and Star Wars stuff is not going to help. With the Cnet article, they are planning up to 20 new shows. That could be lower, but more than half a dozen from each side. I'm going to start with Star Wars. I don't have much inkling to see the films, but even fans are getting burnt out. I said this in a blog back in the summer of 2018 that there was too many films when the Solo film flopped horribly. Hard to tell if Episode IX would have had better numbers in the spring if the pandemic didn't happen, but who knows.

People love The Mandalorian. But I'm not sure there is any hype for something like a Lando show or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Not to say all their ideas are coming out at the same time, but Disney is over milking a franchise that hasn't had any breathing room. Prior to The Force Awakens, the franchise was still in the public eye, but in terms of books, games, and a few other things. I'm not sure if even the die hard fans will be on board.

The problem with the Marvel stuff isn't so much having different things to occur in the shows. There's plenty of development that can be made. But do you need that many? The glut of films and shows is one of the things I can see where it gets people burnt out on comic book films. It's something I've talked about for a long time now. With the properties Fox had now under their grasp, it could go overboard. It won't die painfully like what Batman and Robin did in the late 90s, but Disney and Kevin Feige don't think there is a fatigue. Let's see what happens with Black Widow, which some wonder if it will even do well. Or any of the films that don't have your mainstays like Iron Man and Captain America.

While I will not wish for these to fail, I hope a failure brings Disney back to reality. Too much of a good thing, even if its good, will turn even loyal fans away. Maybe try some original properties as well instead of pinning everything to overworked franchises and reboots.

Star Wars Oversaturation?

In only two weekends, Solo: A Star Wars Story has only made over 150 million dollars domestically according to Box Office Mojo. This past weekend saw it only make 28 million, which was a huge dip. More than likely, this will struggle to make 200 mil domestically. But why?

I like to chalk it up as oversaturation of the brand. There have been four films in the last three and a half years. To compare, there were three between 1977 and 83. There were three between 1999 and 2005. At least there wasn't a franchise fatigue for those two periods of time. Part of the reason why Force Awakens did well was because of three generations of people seeing it. You had the ones from the 70s and 80s, the ones from the 90s and 2000s, and the current ones of today. Part of me thinks Last Jedi did better than expected because of the last time of seeing Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.

The funny thing with Disney is that they were criticized for their constant sequels of their animated films, typically direct to video. That pales in comparison to what they have done with Star Wars and even the Marvel brand. While I believe Marvel films will start to decline at some point, they're not making a new Captain America or a new Thor every year. They're not that stupid, but at the same time, they are with the oversaturation. I hope with Solo, they weren't expecting to make a billion worldwide. If they were, then this was a big misfire that went way off target of expectations.

If there is a silver lining to it, Star Wars Episode IX will be out Christmas 2019. At the very least they can forget this bomb of a film. Disney has nothing to blame but themselves for this. Not every Star Wars project is going to be a guaranteed hit. I would expect IX to do very well next year, but after that, I don't know if any new projects will come up. Maybe a lesson can be learned from doing something like Solo.

Why I'm Not Into Star Wars

This blog will probably piss off geeks if they see this. I'm a bit of a geek, but I'm not that geeky into certain stuff. Star Trek doesn't really interest me other than maybe The Next Generation, particularly Captain Picard. Mystery Science Theater looks very stupid and lazy that anyone could do this kind of show. And Star Wars, to me, looks very shallow and boring.

I know it enough through references in mostly comedies. Stuff like Tommy Boy and Toy Story 2 with "I am your father." jokes. Other stuff parodied like in That 70's Show and Tiny Toon Adventures. Props also to Back to the Future for both a Star Wars and Star Trek reference, as well as Spaceballs being a hilarious full blown parody. I'm not really into watching two and a half hour films that is mostly dialogue based with a few twists and few action scenes to break up the monotony. I'm not saying every scene has to have an action scene every five to ten minutes, but it wouldn't have hurt to trim a little bit.

I'm not really into George Lucas stuff, and I'm someone who honestly prefers the Indiana Jones films. That stuff interests me a lot more because of the kind of treasure hunting and stories that lead the characters to dangerous places. The filmmakers want you to believe in the idea that something like the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are treasures that exist somewhere in this world. Star Wars has the characters you want to see developed really well and the case of good guys vs the bad guys. Just the content looks dragged out and seems too long to get the point across.

I get this isn't what people want to look, but the series doesn't really make me want to watch them compared to Indy. I'm sorry. I'll take treasure hunting over destroying a Death Star.