Is Lucasfilm Concerned About Star Wars Exhaustion? Here’s The Latest

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker poster

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While Star Wars has been a pop culture sensation for decades, there’s no denying that the franchise is bigger than ever. Along with movies still coming down the pipeline, the galaxy far, far away is continually expanding through various TV series (both live-action and animated), video games, novels, comic books, etc. But have we reached a point where Lucasfilm is concerned about over-saturating the public with Star Wars content? For now, not yet, but it is something that the company keeps in mind.

Star Wars: Visions executive producer James Waugh, who’s also the Vice President, Franchise Content and Strategy at Lucasfilm, said as much while speaking with The Direct about Visions, the anime anthology series that’s now available to watch on Disney+. The streaming service has become especially integral to telling new stories in the Star Wars universe, but here’s what Waugh specifically had to say on the topic of potential exhaustion with this franchise:

Are we worried about oversaturation? I think we're always very thoughtful and cautious about how do we keep Star Wars' specialness in this landscape. We're mindful, but this wasn't one of those instances where we had our Spidey-senses on a lot because we felt this was such a new offering.

Star Wars: Visions certainly is one of the more unique offerings from the Star Wars franchise, with six Japanese animation studios having made nine shorts that provide a “new, diverse perspective on Star Wars,” as the anthology series as a whole was once described. But beyond Visions, it sounds like James Waugh and the other leading minds at Lucasfilm are keeping vigilant about making sure that Star Wars feels special in a landscape where it’s easier than ever to deliver content to peoples’ eyeballs. That’s not to say a segment of the fanbase might not already feel there’s an overabundance of Star Wars projects right now, but in Lucasfilm’s eyes, the output is at a reasonable level.

As far as Star Wars movies go, not only is Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron is the next one on deck, it’s also the only one that’s been publicly titled. There are other movies in the works, such as one that’s be directed and co-written by Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi, and another that’s being produced by Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige and written by Loki’s Michael Waldron, but no specific plot details have been revealed for any of these other projects.

Meanwhile in the Star Wars television realm, along with Star Wars: Visions having premiered, Star Wars: The Bad Batch recently concluded its first season and was greenlit for Season 2, and The Book of Boba Fett is slated to premiere sometime in December. Along with The Mandalorian Season 3 now being in production, other forthcoming Star Wars TV shows include Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, Lando, The Acolyte and Rangers of the New Republic. So if you’re subscribed to Disney+ (and if you’re not, you can change that with this link), you’ll be well supplied with small screen tales set in this space opera landscape in the coming years.

As always, keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more news about Star Wars movies and TV shows. Those of you looking forward to Rogue Squadron will be able to see it in theaters on December 22, 2023.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.