Who knew audiences would romanticize the days when studios only produced sequels to their hits? Warner Bros. made a Lethal Weapon, it was a hit, so they made a Lethal Weapon 2, and when it turned out Murtaugh (Danny Glover) was not getting too old for this shit, WB made a Lethal Weapon 3 and so forth.
Today, sequels aren’t good enough for a studio that wants to stretch their IP further than it will go. If you’re going to do a sequel, chances are it also needs to be a legacy-quel where filmmakers pair new characters with returning favorites like in The Force Awakens, which is how we get movies like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Scream 5, and Blade Runner 2049.
There also needs to be spinoffs, prequels, and spinoffs that are also prequels, such as Solo: A Star Wars Story or the TV series Dune: Prophecy. When corporations see a billion-dollar franchise like Star Wars or James Bond, they no longer think, “Oh, people like seeing these movies, so we’ll make more movies.” They assume there’s demand far exceeding only sequels, and so they attempt to crank up production on brand expansions.
One of the people responsible for creating this trend is award-winning producer and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who is rumored to be retiring this year, following over a decade at the helm of the company. Her tenure did include the massive revitalization of the Star Wars brand under Disney with hit films like The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi as well as the popular show The Mandalorian.
However, the reverberations spiraled outwards in terms of the kind of stories we get from franchises and studios working to fill streaming platforms with spinoffs galore. There’s never been more Star Wars than there is now, and it also has become cultural wallpaper, with casual fans shrugging at live-action shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka.
Recently, we saw Amazon take the reins of the James Bond franchise from the Broccoli family, originally spending billions to acquire MGM before shelling out another billion to gain creative control of 007. While Bond was no stranger to finding ways to push the series beyond its movies, with popular games like GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo64 or the animated series James Bond Jr., the next phase for the character could mirror Disney’s approach with Star Wars and far expand the output beyond a single movie every few years.
Instead of seeing Star Wars as a cautionary tale about audience retention in the face of relentless brand expansion, Amazon may decide to forge ahead with a bunch of series focusing on supporting Bond characters, regardless of whether the audience is genuinely interested in these figures.
From a corporate perspective, this is a successful approach. Disney spent $4 billion to acquire Lucasfilm, and in 2024 the studio claimed Lucasfilm generated $12 billion in value in only 12 years. The more Star Wars stuff Disney makes, the more revenue streams it creates whether it’s Grogu toys or new theme park attractions based on the sequel trilogy.
Some fans may look at these expansions and get giddy at the thought of more of the thing they love, since there is an appeal to being able to explore the nooks and crannies of a story world that a feature film would never have time for. There are times where this works well — take Disney+’s Andor, which doesn’t concern itself as much with lore as much as crafting a taut political thriller and setting it in the Star Wars universe.
Unfortunately, Andor proves more the exception than the rule: Instead of inventive new explorations, the bulk of new Star Wars tales have been diluted stories that make these worlds feel smaller and more insular, and the reception to these shows has been mixed at best.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Disney+)
