“The force is strong with them”: Proof That Disney Is Still Swimming in Star Wars Money Despite Allegedly Ruining the Franchise
- Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 and has since given the franchise a new direction.
- Disney has earned a billion dollars solely from the sale of Star Wars merchandise.
- Fans have been quite disapproving of how Disney has been dealing with Star Wars.
Disney is undeniably still one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world. Initially a leader in the animation industry, Disney’s acquisition of fan-favorite franchises like Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox has helped propel it to the massive success it enjoys today.
Recently, the company has been accused of ruining the outings of Marvel and Lucasfilm. While Marvel was acquired in 2009, the latter was bought in 2012. Despite those allegations, the company is raking in billions. In fact, its earnings from Star Wars merchandise alone will take some by surprise.
Disney Earns a Shocking Amount of Money Solely Through the Sale of Star Wars Merchandise
George Lucas laid the foundations of the epic space opera media franchise, Star Wars in 1977. It did not take long for the first eponymous movie to become a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. What started as a movie was soon a wide-ranging franchise that now includes TV shows, comics, theme parks, and many other such media.
Since Disney bought the production company Lucasfilm, the franchise has been expanded quite a lot with live-action TV shows for the streamer Disney+ and of course, movies. Even on the animation front, there has been a lot of development. Despite this, fans are not too impressed. Disney, on the other hand, seems to be doing just fine.
According to The Hollywood Reporter‘s recent report, a source has claimed that a majority of the money the company makes from Star Wars comes from merchandise. In fact, last year, they allegedly made a billion dollars just from that particular source. For what it’s worth, Baby Yoda is a quite popular commodity. Here is how netizens reacted to the news:
That said, the problems began when the sequel film trilogy left fans largely disappointed due to the confusing storytelling. It was mostly because the trilogy was not made by a single filmmaker. Rian Johnson made the second film while J. J. Abrams did the first and third. Consequently, there was a decline in the worldwide gross even if all three movies crossed the billion-dollar mark.
Why Are Fans Disappointed with Disney’s Handling of Star Wars?
Fans have been agitated with the ever-evolving master plan for the films. It has been half a decade since the last movie was released. The fandom, as one can imagine, is restless. However, it has to be noted that despite its shortcomings, Disney is trying its best to give the fans what they want. There is no longer just a single universe. They have also tried to compensate with the TV shows even if it has not been going particularly well lately.
Plenty of TV shows have been released since 2019. The first of these was Jon Favreau‘s The Mandalorian, which was a highly risky project to undertake. Luckily, it turned out to be an unconventional success. A spin-off show, The Book of Boba Fett was also released.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor did well with both critics and fans. Ahsoka and The Acolyte, on the other hand, landed well with the critics but left fans upset. The latter of these was subjected to a lot of backlash, and things turned ugly very quickly.
