Iger and Chapek Livid With Lucasfilm

[doctornick]

It’s performed great....

...they need content. Industry estimates are that Hollywood production is shut down for the year. That’s minimum 10 months which is dangerous to the streaming services.

Regarding Disney+ and The Mandalorian in particular, there were reports in early March that the second season already completed filming. Now, that doesn't mean that the show is ready to broadcast this moment since there is surely special effects and editing to perform, but I would expect it to be on track for its fall release date.

 

[UNCgolf]

Well there is certainly argument to be made that Lucasfilm would be expendable in any anti-trust suit. Each of the sequel trilogy has made less than the force awakens. Box office has only gone down. TROS barely crawled over 1 billion and then there are the rumors of Disney being disappointed at Galaxy's Edge attendance.

Barely crawled over 1 billion is the point. It was one of the highest grossing movies of the year. The fact that it was a disappointment isn't really important when it still made that much money. They also use Lucasfilm for Disney+ content, which they need. Beyond that, there's no way Disney is going to be interested in paying someone else a licensing fee for huge showpiece areas they built in their parks (that could all be part of a sale, of course, but then that has its own issues).

I can't see any scenario in which Disney sells Lucasfilm unless the whole company is on the verge of going under. And that's not happening anytime soon.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

I would think that most if not all major decisions regarding lucasfilm are actually made up top from the GMs office.

Not all departments/divisions...but the LFL purchase was a weird combination of an “internationally marquee” move saddled with “mistakes” due to George and his late “eisnerian” period...

They also are/were directly competing with marvel which became HUGE at exactly that time. $300 Ironman and captain America movies had just become $1.2 billion dollar avenger movies with huge worldwide momentum.

Pixar made sense...marvel has overachieved...LFL was supposed to be Iger’s feather...
Nobody thought George was gonna sell and the world perked up.

But it has not gotten the job done to the level it should have and a lot of that were internal mistakes. They erased the all time Hollywood classic characters and didn’t leave a memorable one in their place after it was over. Now that the dust settled we can really look at this. Daisy Ridley will never be as widely recognized as Hamill, Fisher or Ford. It’s just how it is. And that shouldnt be so. Their goal was obviously replacement and what they got is decline.

Maybe the world has changed too much and that’s not all on Disney?...but there were some obvious mistakes. I will concede that.

Iger talked about that sale and the weird situation with Kennedy in the middle in his book. She is there for the wrong reasons on some fronts even if the choice made sense. We’ve beat them over and over again and don’t need to do it now.

But she’s not Feige...or catmull/Lasseter....too much heat in that kitchen.


It’s performed great....

...they need content. Industry estimates are that Hollywood production is shut down for the year. That’s minimum 10 months which is dangerous to the streaming services.

They get stale and they end up an also ran that people won’t care for long term. The world changed in a hurry and we don’t know how that’s gonna affect consumer tastes yet?

Disney is struggling with this in nearly all their business segments.

In essence: not the time to buy stock.

We are discussing new tv series or anthology movies. Young Obi-Wan, Mandalorian, Ahsoka. Prequel era SW. The era that Disney wouldn't touch any less if it had Corona.

For all the criticism of the PT, Lucas did manage to infuse SW with a proper universe.

Meanwhile the ST doesn't live in the fans' imagination. Anybody needs to see 'The Origin of the First Order'? 'The further adventures of Finn as he explores his force sensitivity'? 'How its Really Casino Dwelling Arms Dealers Who Rule the Galaxy - a six-part Disney+ documentary series'?

There seems to be very little to milk from the ST. The money stopped at the Box Office.

 

[UNCgolf]

The first on the chopping block would be ESPN. It's been a money pit for a long time and it's just getting worse. To be fair I haven't seen or heard if the launch of + altered this, but my suspicion is no. League rights and "talent" have been outstripping ROI for too long. American sports in general is a house of cards, wouldn't be surprised to see many teams fail after coronavirus dies down.

This actually isn't true.

ESPN isn't as profitable as it was 10 years ago (which is why people think it's a money pit), but it's still tremendously profitable. It's one of Disney's highest grossing segments and results in several billion dollars of profit every year; it may be more profitable than Disney's film studios. Carriage fees alone are likely near $10 billion a year. Of course that number could continue to drop with cord cutting, but cord cutting itself may slow down or stop as content continues to be split up among an increasing number of streaming platforms.

If they were going to get rid of television channels, ABC makes far less money for Disney than ESPN does.

 

[Tom P.]

Woah, boys...

Let’s not do this stuff...I’ll finish it:

1: Star Wars is still profitable.
2. Star Wars is still underachieving
3. Is that good enough for Disney? You decide.

I think Disney is trying to use the Star Trek model but expecting Star Wars results.

What do I mean by that? Well, for decades now the Trek universe has had way more content than the Wars universe. As of 2014, the year before The Force Awakens was released, in the Trek universe there had been 13 feature films and five television series spanning around 700 episodes. And that's just talking live action. In the Wars universe at that time, there were basically just six feature films and that's it. Again, just talking live action.

With Trek, almost everything they did had been successful, but very few things achieved true "blockbuster" status. The studio behind it knew that it was profitable to keep churning out content, but they also knew there was a certain ceiling to the ratings/revenue, so they kept things within budgetary limitations that would make it profitable with those numbers.

Star Wars, by contrast, pretty much thrived on the fact that every new film was an event. There were only two trilogies. And those were 16 years apart. Each film was a heavily-anticipated blockbuster and made phenomenal money, but that was largely driven by the anticipation and waiting for the next release.

Now, for the last five years, Disney has been trying to release a glut of Star Wars content on a near-constant basis. Yet they are expecting new content to produce ridiculously extreme results. There is talk in this thread of it being bad that Rise of Skywalker "only" made a billion dollars. A BILLION dollars.

Star Trek is seen as one of the most successful franchises in media history, and rightly so. Yet even when adjusted for inflation, not a single Trek film has even approached the billion dollar mark. The most successful, again adjusted for inflation, would be Into Darkness with $495.20 million and The Motion Picture with $454.28 million. (Soak up that contrast for a moment.) So not even half a billion for a single film, even the modern J.J. Abrams ones.

My point? Disney has to decide what Star Wars is. Is it an "event" franchise that releases relatively sparse content but which makes billions on each release? Or is it an everyday franchise that releases content constantly which is modestly, but not excessively, successful? I don't think it can be both.

 

[Tom P.]

This actually isn't true.

ESPN is nowhere near as profitable as it was 10 years ago (which is why people think it's a money pit), but it's still tremendously profitable. It's one of Disney's highest grossing segments and results in several billion dollars of profit every year; it may be more profitable than Disney's film studios.

If they were going to get rid of television channels, ABC makes far less money for Disney than ESPN does.

As an aside, what the heck is ESPN doing right now when we have the unprecedented situation of literally no sports being played? I am not a sports person and have basically never watched ESPN, so I don't know, and I am legitimately curious.

 

[UNCgolf]

As an aside, what the heck is ESPN doing right now when we have the unprecedented situation of literally no sports being played? I am not a sports person and have basically never watched ESPN, so I don't know, and I am legitimately curious.

The NFL Draft is happening right now, which is obviously a boon for them. I know they have sports documentaries they've been playing (including a new long one about Michael Jordan that has a lot of interest). I think they've been televising video game sports? Like with celebrities/players playing against each other in Madden or something.

I'm not totally sure, because although I am a big sports person, I really only care about watching the actual live events themselves. I'm not really interested in all the surrounding chatter, so I haven't had any reason to watch ESPN recently except for the NFL Draft.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think Disney is trying to use the Star Trek model but expecting Star Wars results.

What do I mean by that? Well, for decades now the Trek universe has had way more content than the Wars universe. As of 2014, the year before The Force Awakens was released, in the Trek universe there had been 13 feature films and five television series spanning around 700 episodes. And that's just talking live action. In the Wars universe at that time, there were basically just 6 feature films and that's it. Again, just talking live action.

With Trek, almost everything they did had been successful, but very few things achieved true "blockbuster" status. The studio behind it knew that it was profitable to keep churning out content, but they also knew there was a certain ceiling to the ratings/revenue, so they kept things within budgetary limitations that would make it profitable with those numbers.

Star Wars, by contrast, pretty much thrived on the fact that every new film was an event. There were only two trilogies. And those were 16 years apart. Each film was a heavily-anticipated blockbuster and made phenomenal money, but that was largely driven by the anticipation and waiting for the next release.

Now, for the last five years, Disney has been trying to release a glut of Star Wars content on a near-constant basis. Yet they are expecting new content to produce ridiculously extreme results. There is talk in this thread of it being bad that Rise of Skywalker "only" made a billion dollars. A BILLION dollars.

Star Trek is seen as one of the most successful franchises in media history, and rightly so. Yet even when adjusted for inflation, not a single Trek film has even approached the billion dollar mark. The most successful, again adjusted for inflation, would be Into Darkness with $495.20 million and The Motion Picture with $454.28 million. (Soak up that contrast for a moment.) So not even half a billion for a single film, even the modern J.J. Abrams ones.

My point? Disney has to decide what Star Wars is. Is it an "event" franchise that releases relatively sparse content but which makes billions on each release? Or is it an everyday franchise that releases content constantly which is modestly, but not excessively, successful? I don't think it can be both.

I totally agree...well put.

The problem is that the egghead accountants in Burbank...or Marin county before...failed to realize the SCARCITY of Star Wars was a big part of the legend.

Mark hamill had the fountain of youth...he was that blonde kid with the David cassidy bob for 35 years and that was part of the charm/appeal.

If...IF...you were going to break that - it had better be equally as iconic.

The results are now speaking for themselves. Can’t do what you did there.

 

[SteamboatJoe]

The NFL Draft is happening right now, which is obviously a boon for them. I know they have sports documentaries they've been playing (including a new long one about Michael Jordan that has a lot of interest). I think they've been televising video game sports? Like with celebrities/players playing against each other in Madden or something.

I'm not totally sure, because although I am a big sports person, I really only care about watching the actual live events themselves. I'm not really interested in all the surrounding chatter, so I haven't had any reason to watch ESPN recently except for the NFL Draft.

I miss the days of turning on old-fashioned SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight. Getting scores and watching highlights was a nice, relaxing ritual on a summer night.

 

[rreading]

I think Disney is trying to use the Star Trek model but expecting Star Wars results.

What do I mean by that? Well, for decades now the Trek universe has had way more content than the Wars universe. As of 2014, the year before The Force Awakens was released, in the Trek universe there had been 13 feature films and five television series spanning around 700 episodes. And that's just talking live action. In the Wars universe at that time, there were basically just six feature films and that's it. Again, just talking live action.

With Trek, almost everything they did had been successful, but very few things achieved true "blockbuster" status. The studio behind it knew that it was profitable to keep churning out content, but they also knew there was a certain ceiling to the ratings/revenue, so they kept things within budgetary limitations that would make it profitable with those numbers.

Star Wars, by contrast, pretty much thrived on the fact that every new film was an event. There were only two trilogies. And those were 16 years apart. Each film was a heavily-anticipated blockbuster and made phenomenal money, but that was largely driven by the anticipation and waiting for the next release.

Now, for the last five years, Disney has been trying to release a glut of Star Wars content on a near-constant basis. Yet they are expecting new content to produce ridiculously extreme results. There is talk in this thread of it being bad that Rise of Skywalker "only" made a billion dollars. A BILLION dollars.

Star Trek is seen as one of the most successful franchises in media history, and rightly so. Yet even when adjusted for inflation, not a single Trek film has even approached the billion dollar mark. The most successful, again adjusted for inflation, would be Into Darkness with $495.20 million and The Motion Picture with $454.28 million. (Soak up that contrast for a moment.) So not even half a billion for a single film, even the modern J.J. Abrams ones.

My point? Disney has to decide what Star Wars is. Is it an "event" franchise that releases relatively sparse content but which makes billions on each release? Or is it an everyday franchise that releases content constantly which is modestly, but not excessively, successful? I don't think it can be both.

While I don't really disagree with this solid point, I very much imagine that Iger et al thought that since Marvel had been able to churn out movie after movie with consistent returns, then why wouldn't Star Wars? The one real miscue in the SW film releases was Solo. They released it on the heels of Infinity War and Black Panther (iirc). While my SW fanatic friend saw Solo early and said that I would enjoy it (as I did), my kids were all Marvel at that point and we didn't see Solo until a few weeks into its release. My impression is that it was a victim of timing more than anything else. Should have been a July release.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This actually isn't true.

ESPN isn't as profitable as it was 10 years ago (which is why people think it's a money pit), but it's still tremendously profitable. It's one of Disney's highest grossing segments and results in several billion dollars of profit every year; it may be more profitable than Disney's film studios. Carriage fees alone are likely near $10 billion a year. Of course that number could continue to drop with cord cutting, but cord cutting itself may slow down or stop as content continues to be split up among an increasing number of streaming platforms.

If they were going to get rid of television channels, ABC makes far less money for Disney than ESPN does.

As an aside, what the heck is ESPN doing right now when we have the unprecedented situation of literally no sports being played? I am not a sports person and have basically never watched ESPN, so I don't know, and I am legitimately curious.

1. Correct...espn peaked in profitability in 2009. Their subscriptions (cable cutters) and ad
Revenue (because of cable cutters and preference for dvrs and stream services) have fallen steadily since. They stripped nearly all their salary because of this over the last 5+ years.

And you know where Disney looked to compensate for these losses? Take a wild guess....

2. Espn is sucking more than normal...that’s what they’re doing. Covid protocol

 

[Animaniac93-98]

My point? Disney has to decide what Star Wars is. Is it an "event" franchise that releases relatively sparse content but which makes billions on each release? Or is it an everyday franchise that releases content constantly which is modestly, but not excessively, successful? I don't think it can be both.

Disney certainly wanted it to be both. They wanted Star Wars to be as profitable as Marvel, with as much content being released with the same frequency. They wanted to squeeze every last drop of this cash cow.

They just didn't expect it to start drying up so soon.

 

[jinx8402]

Actually Rosario Dawson is slightly to young to being playing Ashoka in Mandalorian. When we are introduced to Ashoka at the start of the Clone Wars she is 14 so by the time we get to the time of the Mandlorian she should be around the age of 50. Rosario Dawson is only 40.

That assumes that her species, togruta, age at the same rate as humans.

 

[rreading]

I think Disney is trying to use the Star Trek model but expecting Star Wars results.

What do I mean by that? Well, for decades now the Trek universe has had way more content than the Wars universe. As of 2014, the year before The Force Awakens was released, in the Trek universe there had been 13 feature films and five television series spanning around 700 episodes. And that's just talking live action. In the Wars universe at that time, there were basically just six feature films and that's it. Again, just talking live action.

With Trek, almost everything they did had been successful, but very few things achieved true "blockbuster" status. The studio behind it knew that it was profitable to keep churning out content, but they also knew there was a certain ceiling to the ratings/revenue, so they kept things within budgetary limitations that would make it profitable with those numbers.

Star Wars, by contrast, pretty much thrived on the fact that every new film was an event. There were only two trilogies. And those were 16 years apart. Each film was a heavily-anticipated blockbuster and made phenomenal money, but that was largely driven by the anticipation and waiting for the next release.

Now, for the last five years, Disney has been trying to release a glut of Star Wars content on a near-constant basis. Yet they are expecting new content to produce ridiculously extreme results. There is talk in this thread of it being bad that Rise of Skywalker "only" made a billion dollars. A BILLION dollars.

Star Trek is seen as one of the most successful franchises in media history, and rightly so. Yet even when adjusted for inflation, not a single Trek film has even approached the billion dollar mark. The most successful, again adjusted for inflation, would be Into Darkness with $495.20 million and The Motion Picture with $454.28 million. (Soak up that contrast for a moment.) So not even half a billion for a single film, even the modern J.J. Abrams ones.

My point? Disney has to decide what Star Wars is. Is it an "event" franchise that releases relatively sparse content but which makes billions on each release? Or is it an everyday franchise that releases content constantly which is modestly, but not excessively, successful? I don't think it can be both.

Another significant point of contrast between SW and ST is that the production values of SW have been consistently amazing. ST has only been able to get there recently with the advent of easy CGI. SW has always felt real while ST has always seemed to me as a well done stage play

 

[UNCgolf]

1. Correct...espn peaked in profitability in 2009. Their subscriptions (cable cutters) and ad
Revenue (because of cable cutters and preference for dvrs and stream services) have fallen steadily since. They stripped nearly all their salary because of this over the last 5+ years.

And you know where Disney looked to compensate for these losses? Take a wild guess....

2. Espn is sucking more than normal...that’s what they’re doing. Covid protocol

Right. ESPN went from being insanely, wildly, over the top profitable 15 years ago to just significantly profitable at the moment. They have been helped out by the fact carriage fees continue to rise, so there's been some balancing in revenue even with the decline of cable subscribers. They're also bringing in about $500 million a year now in ESPN+ subscriptions.

ESPN will probably remain profitable as long as people are interested in live sports.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The Force Awakens made over $2 billion worldwide because of pent up demand for Star Wars content. It was the first new movie in 10 years, and the first sequel to the original trilogy, with the original cast, in over 30. It was a must see for that reason.

Once Disney started releasing one every year they stopped being special. The faithful came, but general audiences who had been forced fed Dark Universes and Extended Universes caught on to the Marvel Rip-Off Model and knew they didn't need to rush to see every one.

 

[rreading]

The Force Awakens made over $2 billion worldwide because of pent up demand for Star Wars content. It was the first new movie in 10 years, and the first sequel to the original trilogy, with the original cast, in over 30. It was a must see for that reason.

Once Disney started releasing one every year they stopped being special. The faithful came, but general audiences who had been forced fed Dark Universes and Extended Universes caught on to the Marvel Rip-Off Model and knew they didn't need to rush to see every one.

The other point along this Marvel/Star Wars comparison is that each Marvel episode would carry the overall story forward; if you miss one, then you're missing out on a gap in the story. If you don't go to see Captain Marvel then the events in Endgame don't make sense.

 

[SJN1279]

I agree Dave Filoni should be in charge not Kathleen Kennedy. Hopefully Disney will be smart and give Dave the job.

I find Filoni to be a very dull storyteller. His episodes of The Mandolorian were for me, not very interesting or entertaining. I feel the same way about most of The Clone War episodes.

Jon Favreau is the way to go for Lucasfilm.

 

[Giss Neric]

The other point along this Marvel/Star Wars comparison is that each Marvel episode would carry the overall story forward; if you miss one, then you're missing out on a gap in the story. If you don't go to see Captain Marvel then the events in Endgame don't make sense.

What's the problem with catching up? Movies are accesible and cheap or even free if your pirate. Why is it a problem for movies to be connected to one another. It took me three months combined to watch all MCU movies before watching Infinity War/End Game. I made time for it even with my busy schedule. Also, I know a lot who haven't seen Captain Marvel but could not care cause her role wasn't that huge anyways in End Game.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I find Filoni to be a very dull storyteller. His episodes of The Mandolorian were for me, not very interesting or entertaining. I feel the same way about most of The Clone War episodes.

Jon Favreau is the way to go for Lucasfilm.

I think filoni has become a good crafter in that universe...

But his problem is he is a Lucas-loyalist from the bad era when Lucas did what he wanted as dictator without financial constraints.

When George has to abide by SOME Hollywood management - empire - he had people to correct deviations in course because more was at stake.

In two words: Gary Kurtz

When he became autonomous -
Jedi - you get Ewoks and death star 3.14.

It’s really ironic for George...the “creative freedom”
He’s lauded for getting has slowly diminished the product.

Back to filoni....I just think he’s too “spoilt”. They need a “fan” that hasn’t been told it HAS to be this way or serve this demographic.

What’s ironic about marvel is they went with what was old hat first for the most part...and once the audience was hooked got the demos pulled in. Would marvel be huge if black panther, captain marvel and black widow were the first phase?

They certainly could have been...but Ironman and Captain America smashed the gates open and now we like them all.