Rumor: Writers And Actors Strike Sowing Chaos At Disney Star Wars, Dave Filoni’s Film Directly Affected
A new rumor claims that the ongoing Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes are sowing chaos at Disney Star Wars and it could significantly impact the recently announced Dave Filoni theatrical release.
At Star Wars Celebration in April, Lucasfilm announced that Dave Filoni would direct his first ever theatrical feature spinning out of the Mandoverse shows that he and Jon Favreau had been working on since 2019 with The Mandalorian.
A press release stated, “Expanding upon Star Wars storytelling in the present, Dave Filoni will orchestrate the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic. Alongside producer Jon Favreau, they will bring together many of the threads of the Star Wars original series in a cinematic event.”
Now, a new rumor indicates the lead-up to the film could be in doubt and Lucasfilm executives are scrambling. Jason Ward at Making Star Wars reports, “There is a fear Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni will not be able to make two seasons of Disney+ shows that are prerequisites for Dave Filoni’s Star Wars theatrical film.”
In order to have the proper build-up for Filoni’s film, Lucasfilm executives are allegedly floating the idea that The Mandalorian Season 4 can be condensed into a theatrical release.
Not only does the rumor claim that they are floating the idea of converting The Mandalorian Season 4 into a theatrical release, but Ward also posits that Lucasfilm is shifting its release strategy from Disney+ back to theaters.
He states, “Disney is prioritizing theatrical releases for Star Wars over Disney+ at the moment (a sharp policy change over the last few years).”
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Based on the announcements at Star Wars Celebration, it’s hard to see this being true. They promoted multiple Disney+ shows including The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, The Acolyte, and Andor live-action series as well as the animated Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, Star Wars: Visions, and Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
In contrast, they announced three theatrical releases from directors James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and Sharmeen Obaid Chinaoy without any specifics as to when they will come out. And given Lucasfilm’s recent history it’s more than likely all of these films could get shelved rather than actually make it to a theatrical release.
What does give this part of the rumor merit is the fact that The Walt Disney Company recently admitted that a number of the programs they created for Disney+ are not actually driving subscribers and they would begin cutting the amount of programs for Disney+.
On top of the amount of programs they would cut, they also announced they would be taking a massive $1.8 billion tax write off after removing a number of the programs such as Willow from the Disney+ service. However, it does not appear any of the Star Wars content they made was part of this write off. In contrast, it appears it might be one of the few drivers for people to subscribe to Disney+ despite the massive amounts of cash they are spending on the productions.
During The Walt Disney Company’s Q2 FY23 Earnings Results webcast Iger revealed how their Disney+ content was not driving subscribers, “As we grow the business in terms of the global footprint, we realized that we made a lot of content that is not necessarily driving sub growth and we’re getting much more surgical about what it is we make.”
“So as we look to reduce content spend, we’re looking to reduce it in a way that should not have any impact at all on subs,” he asserted. “We believe there is an opportunity for us to focus more on real sub drivers.”
Former Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy revealed announced the tax write off in the same webcast, “We are in the process of reviewing the content on our DTC services to align with the strategic changes in our approach to content curation that you’ve heard Bob discuss. As a result we will be removing certain content from our streaming platform and currently expect to take an impairment charge of approximately $1.5 to $1.8 billion.”
She added, “The charge, which will not be recorded in our segment results, will primarily be recognized in the third quarter as we complete our review and remove the content. And going forward we intend to produce lower volumes of content in alignment with this strategic shift.”
What do you make of this latest rumor regarding Disney Star Wars and Dave Filoni’s live-action film that will see Grand Admiral Thrawn as the big bad of the New Republic era?