Here’s Why Disney Won’t Sell Star Wars
A strange rumor has garnered plenty of heat recently. Even business sites have refuted it to reassure easily confused investors.
No, Disney won’t sell Star Wars anytime soon. Here are several reasons why.
Image: Star Wars
Disney Is Playing with House Money
The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser debacle and some other recent missteps have gained an outsized amount of criticism.
I’m as guilty of this behavior as anyone since I’m borderline obsessed with the Star Wars Hotel story.
Photo: Disney
Still, we shouldn’t miss the forest for the trees here. Disney experienced immediate, lucrative success with the Star Wars franchise.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens earns more than $2 billion at the box office, and that’s before we factor in ancillary sales.
At the time, the home video market remained strong, and the cable industry had cash to burn as well.
Photo: skillastics.com
This one film could have feasibly returned $1.5 billion of Disney’s $4 billion investment to purchase.
Half of that comes from box office while the rest stems from ancillary revenue streams. And just to be clear, that’s before we discuss toy sales.
Photo: CNBC
In 2015, Star Wars worked as a rainmaker with more than $700 million in toy sales revenue. In one year.
The following year, Disney increased its overall franchise toy revenue by more than four percent.
As an industry, these products sold $262.9 billion, with Star Wars gaining headlines for leading the charge.
Image: Lucasfilm
Oh, and Disney released two other blockbuster films during this timeframe: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Those two titles generated a box office total of $2.39 billion, with Disney likely claiming a profit of $800 million or so.
Photo: Lucas
You have forgotten some of this because the past few years have been tough, what with politics, plagues, and murder hornets.
Still, you can do some quick math to recognize how much Disney has benefited financially from the Star Wars brand.
At this point, Disney is freerolling with all future earnings…and has been since before COVID-19 was a thing.
The Baby Yoda Scenario
Photo: IMDB
Franchises tend to run hot and cold. If you don’t believe me, check the current status of Fast & Furious.
We’ve got a Hunger Games prequel coming out, too. Lionsgate is banking on it reminding people that the franchise entertained before that regrettable last film.
Photo: Screen Rant
The James Bond franchise has famously struggled at several points throughout its existence and currently faces questions about modernization.
With Star Wars, you won’t find many fans who like the eighth and ninth films. People tend to favor one heavily over the other.
After Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the film series went into mothballs.
Photo: Lucas
Disney easily could have faced savage criticism regarding the box office performance of that movie.
However, The Mandalorian came out a few weeks before The Rise of Skywalker. That pilot introduced the world to Baby Yoda.
Photo: Justin Lubin /Lucasfilm Ltd.
The disappointing box office seemed trivial compared to the genius of this new character. And that’s how franchises work.
One good idea can reinvigorate an entire brand. We’ve seen this with other businesses as well.
You love the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo Wii, and the Nintendo Switch. Do you even remember the Virtual Boy or the Wii U? Exactly.
Photo: apple
Similarly, you’ve likely owned an Apple product like an iPhone, an iPad, or a Mac product. I bet you didn’t own an Apple Newton, though.
Franchises can easily weather the storm of a cold spell – and I’m not even agreeing that Star Wars has had one – as long as the next product is great.
Consumers possess short memories, as demonstrated by the fact that you’d forgotten how much Disney earned from Star Wars.
All that matters is for Disney to produce high-quality films, series, and merchandise.
That’s the Baby Yoda scenario. One good story idea can fundamentally change the perception of a brand.
The Disney Park Tie-Ins
Hey, what’s the most popular themed land at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World?
Photo: Richard Harbaugh
Yes, the answer is Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Disney has constructed two fabulous attractions to populate an entire world named Batuu.
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance remain among the most popular rides at either park.
Photo: Disney
In fact, Rise of the Resistance remains in the conversation for best themed attraction in the world.
Disney also owns and operates several Star Wars restaurants and stores.
Were the company to sell, it’d face a legal headache in securing permanent licensing rights for these park features.
(Abigail Nilsson, photographer)
Over time, the cost of licensing the content could feasibly approach the amount of money Disney receives in a sales transaction.
Similarly, all the Star Wars programming available on Disney+ would become someone else’s content in the event of a Star Wars/Lucasfilm sale.
Photo: Disney
This aspect alone ruins any chance of Star Wars leaving Disney.
The unmistakable truth is that Star Wars has become too ingrained in Disney’s daily business operations.
Disney Has Several Plans in Motion
Photo: Starwars.com
On June 11th, Massive Entertainment announced its newest video game.
Star Wars Outlaws, the “first open-world Star Wars game,” is in development.
This stylish offering will tell a story set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Photo: Starwars.com
More importantly, as an open-world game, it’s likely to receive DLC updates for years afterward.
Disney will receive money from this project, even though the game won’t use Disney tech.
That’s the magic of owning a lucrative franchise like Star Wars. You can license it at a high price.
Photo: Disney+
Of course, Disney is working on its own titles as well. For example, Ahsoka will debut on Disney+ on August 23rd.
Disney also announced three new Star Wars films. They won’t be a trilogy but closer in style to the Star Wars Story films like Rogue One and Solo.
Image: Lucasfilm
James Mangold will direct one, while Dave Filoni handles another, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy helms the third.
Disney has fostered a plan for several years of Star Wars content. The company learned from a previous mistake with excessive film releases.
Source: Lucasfilm
Now, Star Wars titles have had room to breathe and develop at a more organic pace.
A company wouldn’t do that if it were planning to sell a franchise. It’d get all the money it could in the short term and then bail.
The Drawing Power of the Star Wars Brand
Here, let me throw a few quick facts at you to reinforce how strong the Star Wars brand remains.
Photo: Shutterstock
On a recent Star Wars Day, Disney+ tracked a 14 percent increase in daily traffic, as fans wanted The Force with them.
In 2020, The Mandalorian proved itself as the new streaming show with the highest demand in the world.
Counting different console releases of same titles, nearly 50 different Star Wars video games have sold at least one million copies.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
As a reminder, most video games come with a list price of $60. We’re talking about billions of dollars in console/PC revenue alone.
Star Wars has also overperformed in the mobile gaming industry. Its revenue has surpassed $1 billion.
Finally, Star Wars has proven wildly popular on social media. Its Instagram account claims 16.5 million followers, while the fading Twitter still lists 6.3 million.
On Facebook, Star Wars has earned 19 million likes, and it has one million followers on TikTok and four million on YouTube. It’s a social media juggernaut.
George Lucas Wouldn’t Like It
As long as Bob Iger runs Disney, the odds of the company selling Star Wars remain remote.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
I say this because Iger has built his executive career around relationships.
That’s how Disney’s CEO grew well-respected in Wall Street and Hollywood alike, a rarity in the modern corporate world.
When George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he and Iger shared an understanding that the latter individual would protect the franchise.
(Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
If Iger turned around and sold Star Wars/Lucasfilm while Lucas is still alive, that action wouldn’t be well-received.
Now, I should emphasize that Iger should do whatever’s in the best interest of Disney, but the opinion of the creator of Star Wars matters greatly.
Photo Credit: www.screenrant.com
A few years from now, Iger will have retired, while Lucas turns 80 in 2024. The latter individual may be past caring soon.
Still, I doubt Disney sells until both of these Hollywood icons are no longer in charge.
Even then, an outside party would require a massive overpay to entice Disney to sell such an astoundingly lucrative franchise.
Photo: MickeyBlog
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