We knew that the House of Mouse was launching an in-house streaming service by the end of 2019 as it had previously announced it was pulling all Disney content – so, every Star Wars movie, every Marvel movie, every Pixar movie – from all other streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and the like, but during the company’s quarterly earnings call yesterday, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger announced that it was also developing a number of TV series to air on the streaming service.

The jaw-drop moment came when it was announced it would be a live-action Star Wars series. This something that’s been in demand for decades, but it’s never managed to get off the ground. Of course, Star Wars has an established foothold in animated serialized storytelling with Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but the live-action market has yet to be exploited.

No specifics are available on the series at this stage or whether it will link to the Skywalker saga or venture out to new, little-known corners of the galaxy. With the standalone Star Wars movies exploring Skywalker-associated stories like Rogue One and Solo, the serialized TV landscape seems like the perfect venue to take the franchise in brand new directions. Let’s face facts, much more has been happening on TV than in cinema and TV is drawing bigger crowds and bigger stars. HBO’s Westworld for instance, Star Trek: Discovery, Agents of SHIELD and so on. After all, despite costing $8m per episode, a 15-part series of Star Trek: Discovery still costs $70m less than the pile of steaming Klingon turd that was Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Star Wars is BIG bucks. Since 1977, it’s estimated to have made $33billion. Lucas sold it to Disney for $4.55billion

Iger also announced that Disney is working on TV adaptations of Pixar’s Monsters Inc. and Disney Channel’s High School Musical…as well as a brand new, original series from Marvel.

With Marvel airing across multiple networks right now on FOX (The Gifted), FX (Legion), ABC (Agents of SHIELD), Hulu (Runaways) and Netflix (The Defenders-verse) it’ll be extremely interesting to see how it slots in.

Iger also mentioned the studio is considering licensing programming from third parties and that ABC Studios could end up producing for the new service. Pricing hasn’t been decided yet, but Iger noted they intended to make it less than Netflix, which currently charges $10.99 a month for their two-device streaming plan.

That’s not all.

Iger also revealed that they’ve hired Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson to develop a new Star Wars trilogy.

Unlike the drama that’s surrounded Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Last Jedi has been totally sans drama, which is exactly what Lucasfilm wants, so clearly they want a director with whom they have a controlling positive relationship with.

In a statement released on StarWars.com, producer Kathleen Kennedy said:

“We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.”

Johnson will develop the new trilogy with longtime collaborator Ram Bergman and plans to write and direct the first installment of the trilogy. However, it’s not expected until after 2020. As for what this trilogy will entail, details are scarce, but StarWars.com reports, “In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.”

Rian Johnson, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac

Fingers crossed not everything will be a safe, PG-13 rated puff piece and that Lucasfilm actually learnt something from the success of the considerably darker Rogue One (2016). In addition to The Last Jedi, Johnson notably has three episodes of Breaking Bad under his belt along with the half-decent Looper (2012).

Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens December 15th. That’s just 35 days from now.

I wonder if by some miracle this will make someone (with money) realize how much potential there is in a 2000AD live action TV series. [sobs]

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