Movie Franchises Struggle to Keep the Dream Alive

On this May 4, Star Wars fans have to be patient as the next release of the epic space-opera franchise is still more than three years away. By the end of the Skywalker saga in 2019, owners Disney had already produced three film outside the original Star Wars storyline - to varying degrees of success. Time will tell if director Taika Waititi can land a hit with the still untitled film due to be released in time for Christmas 2025, but it is a fact that franchises owners have gone to great lengths to make sure their beloved serial movie outlets keep churning out content. But can these franchises keep going forever and be successful?

A look at a second franchise, Harry Potter, gives more indications that they might not be able to. The hugely popular book-to-movie series, which like Star Wars has recently run out of main storyline material, is currently showing its second movie from the Fantastic Beats series, The Secrets of Dumbledore, in theaters. The new series of the franchise now called J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World, makes do without any Harry appearances, but also without the level of success the eight original Potter movies enjoyed. The first installation from the new series, titled The Crimes of Grindelwald, brought in less than half of what earlier movies earned after adjusting for inflation.

The biggest flop was Star Wars', however. The 2008 animated movie "The Clone Wars", released between the end of the prequel series and the start of the sequel Skywalker series, only earned an adjusted $48 million. Star Wars returned to life action play for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016 and actually landed a success outside the Skywalker saga. The movie might have been helped along by the hugely popular Episode VII that came out the previous year and starred parts of the original Star Wars cast alongside Adam Driver, John Boyega and Lupita Nyong'o. The next non-Skywalker movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story, flopped again, which might or might not be the reason why the franchise is taking things more slowly this time to ensure a successful movie release.