New Star Wars Movies Won’t Premier on Disney+

By Reggie's Take on January 6, 2019

Disney’s upcoming streaming service, Disney+ wants to be a serious contender against Netflix, but Disney CEO Bob Iger says not to expect new movies from their biggest franchise to debut on the channel.

When Disney+ becomes available sometime this fall (2019) you can expect to see Disney’s classic animated films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, plus original content like The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau‘s Star Wars series.

Eventually the entire Star Wars film franchise will become available on the streaming channel, but in a recent interview (to Barrons [via Slashfilm], Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO says don’t expect new Star Wars movies to premiere only in their streaming library.

“Almost every movie the studio makes is a $100 million-plus movie, and we’re not looking to make movies at that level for the service. We’re looking to invest significantly in television series on a per-episode business, and we’re looking to make movies that are higher-budget, but nothing like that.

We wouldn’t make a Star Wars movie for this platform. When everybody goes out on the weekend and you have a movie that opens up to $200 million, there’s a buzz that creates that enhances value. We like that. And eventually the movies we’re making are going to [end up on] the service.”

That doesn’t mean Disney+ won’t feature original films like the reimagining of Lady and the Tramp starring Tessa Thompson, but if you were hoping that Disney and Lucasfilm might actually make that Obi-Wan standalone movie? Well don’t expect to see it on Disney+ unless it’s released to theaters first.