The Disney Direction

Mods, I placed this here as it's more "general," than anything, but I believe it ties to the directions the franchise and movies will go. Move it to wherever, if need be.

And... it's all just speculation based on observation.

We are roughly 2 years into the "rebirth" of Star Wars under the Disney ownership. It's new territory, but we do have a map.

Deep breath.

So far, we have seen the announcement of 6 films (I believe), the cancellation/re-jiggering of the video-games under progress, the announcement of new games, the cancellation of "The Clone Wars" (due to contract problems with Cartoon Network, if I have heard correctly)--while still "finishing" some arcs of the show in comics and books--the creation of a series that ties "The Clone Wars" roughly into the period prior to "A New Hope," (that's "Rebels)," several comic series that take place within the OT time-line, and now we will have 20 books that will fill in the gap from "RotJ," to "TFA."

*sigh*

That's a pretty involved business strategy.

We also got a "Roger Rabbit," moment--DC/Warner Studios hosted Star Wars characters, which are Marvel/Disney Studios characters, in "The Lego Movie," last summer. Cross-properties are pretty rare--damned rare.

To top this off, Marvel studios will now be working with Sony using "Spider-Man," and from what I gather, they've been pretty strategic about what properties they (Disney) are investing in that are "shared-rights" properties. An example, I guess (from what I've read), Marvel does not make Fantastic 4 comics anymore, and are pretty much at war with Fox right now over rights to various properties. Will Spider-Man in the MCU be as canon as the Sony Spider-Man and the comic Spider-Man? I think so.

http://collider.com/marvel-fights-fox-cancels-fantastic-four/

If we look at Disney/Marvel, we see a clear pattern for their MCU films. They all build together. For non-comics fans, Disney/Marvel seems to be in the process of wiping out and re-booting their comics. I think this arc is called "Secret Wars."

http://badassdigest.com/2015/01/21/marvel-is-rebooting-its-comic-book-universe-for-some-reason/

In a way, it appears that they are trying to line up all their properties into one consistent continuity. With multiple properties, this is a hard act to do. Comics and films--Marvel isn't so heavy on books and games, however.

The Marvel label is pumping out television shows, however. Agents of Shield and Agent Carter are both on ABC (another Disney property), and seem to be doing well enough that they are moving into season 3, and 2, respectively.

Here is the icing on the cake.

Disney signed up with Netflix a couple years ago, and this has lead to a deal that will showcase 4 characters in their own show, that apparently culminates in a series akin to "the Avengers," called "The Defenders." This isn't speculation, or rumor. This is their business strategy for their Marvel properties.

http://badassdigest.com/2015/01/21/marvel-is-rebooting-its-comic-book-universe-for-some-reason/

This leads me to where I think we are going.

While I love the EU for some of it's stories and characters, things got very, very messy. Some characters appeared in one medium, but were absent from another, or their stories got muddled past the point of making sense.

In this case--unlike the 4,000 different marvel characters and stories, we have one story world, and one story that can be told with multiple characters.

Netflix is another tool in Disney's media arsenal to tie canon together, and rectify 30 years of now "missing" story.

I think, for a lot of the most loved characters, we are going to start seeing mini-series devoted to their stories--perhaps 4-6 episode arcs that tie together either into the films, or into their own "event" series/films on Netflix. This is where we may follow Ahsoka, meet the young Boba Fett, finally get a good Qinlan Vos, possibly fly with Rouge Squadron, or even see our Obi-Wan stories.

Hell, the "I.M.P.S" film crew have been pretty quiet for a while.

This is not to say that some of these characters won't be the spin-off movie characters, but I think our best bet for a lot of characters is in the new media.

I believe, despite all the speculation of who or what will appear in TFA (or the ST in full, for that matter), we are going to see a lot of character and "arc" mini-series in the next few years.

Second quarter reports will be due for stock-holders in June, and Third Quarter reports are due in September.

I expect that we will hear of a Netflix series before we see TFA on screen, and will probably get a series between 7 and 8, or 8 and 9.

 

Well, they just announced "Rouge One," (not quite Rouge Squadron) for their Quarter 1 stock-holders meeting as the first spin off. Rouge Squad is one I'd pegged for a smaller showcase, but at least this shows part of the direction they are going.