By Erich Schwartzel and R.T. Watson
Los Angeles
Luke Skywalker was coming back to the big screen, and executives
at Walt Disney Co. gathered to hear how. It was 2013, and Disney
had months earlier paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm Ltd., the
production company behind the space opera of Princess Leia, Darth
Vader and the power of the Force.
From offices in Burbank, Calif., filmmakers began pitching
Disney studio chief Alan Horn on the plot of "Star Wars: The Force
Awakens," scheduled to hit theaters two years later. They
introduced Mr. Horn to a character that would become a fan favorite
-- a creamsicle-colored droid called BB-8. He loved it, according
to a person in the meeting, and loved the merchandise sales this
soccer-ball-size creation could generate.
But Mr. Horn had a note for the filmmakers. While Disney wanted
to sell millions of toys, fans could never sense that any character
or plot point was conceived as a business decision, he said. Star
Wars was different than any set of characters and story lines
Disney had absorbed up until that point. Any whiff of marketing
imperatives driving the creative decisions on the Star Wars
franchise would immediately, in the eyes of devoted fans, cast
Disney as the evil empire that had gobbled up their beloved
modern-day myth.
Navigating that danger zone has proved to be the most difficult
part of absorbing the blockbuster series: How to bring aboard a new
generation of moviegoers while avoiding turning off the die-hard
fans that have an outsize voice in the success or failure of the
films.
Disney bought a world created by the visionary George Lucas and
plugged it into its franchise-making machine, hoping to turn the
investment into an interconnected product chain of merchandise,
theme-park attractions and films that promise years of future
revenue.
The Star Wars business so far has been good for Disney. "The
Force Awakens," the first of a new trilogy, grossed $937 million
domestically, still the most of any movie in box-office
history.
Disney's new streaming service launched in November with the
Star Wars spinoff "The Mandalorian" as a centerpiece offering that
fans have embraced, turning the character fans call Baby Yoda into
a celebrity. Disney reported it had 10 million users signed up a
day after the service launched. Disney is counting on original
shows like "Mandalorian" to draw users, as well as its archive of
classic titles. Rather than release "Mandalorian" episodes all at
once, Disney has premiered one a week, a strategy that has allowed
it to reignite buzz about the series with each new installment.
An immersive Star Wars-themed attraction called Galaxy's Edge
opened this year at two theme parks in Anaheim, Calif., and
Orlando, Fla., and fans' enthusiasm for custom-made lightsabers and
Jedi Mind Trick cocktails has boosted revenue in Disney's
theme-park division.
Still, worrying fissures have formed. The second episode of the
new trilogy, the 2017 release "The Last Jedi," collected 33% less
at the domestic box office than "Force Awakens." Spinoff film
"Solo," about the younger days of hero Han Solo, was poorly
scheduled and underwhelmed audiences. Fans held off visiting the
new theme park attraction while a promised second ride was behind
schedule. (It opened in Florida this week and is expected to open
in California in January.) A string of high-profile directors has
been fired or left projects unexpectedly, and the creative plan for
the films after the next release is unclear.
The final film of the current trilogy, "Star Wars: The Rise of
Skywalker, " opens on Dec. 19. Disney has indicated it needs to
take a moment after that to reassess its strategy. "We're gonna hit
pause," Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said on a conference
call with Wall Street analysts last month.
With the 2012 Lucasfilm acquisition, Disney purchased an
established cinematic world that came with disciples of the
original movies, who attend conferences dressed in painstakingly
accurate regalia and endlessly debate the minutiae of the
mystically binding energy known as the Force and other lore. Only
after the purchase did Disney begin to fathom how avid a fan base
it had on its hands, according to a consultant Disney hired.
Early buzz among die-hard fans can set the tone for a movie's
overall reception and dent or boost opening-weekend grosses. Studio
executives across Hollywood scour early reactions on social media
to trailers and promotions, assessing whether the responses mean
changes should be made.
The slightest tweak to Star Wars mythology can set fans off.
"People go crazy, even on small things," said Mr. Iger at an
interview conducted at the opening of Galaxy's Edge in May.
Star Wars fans will happily shell out not only for movie
tickets, but also for $20 Blu-rays, $84 Darth Vader gold rings, $32
Chewbacca kitchen aprons and $199 lightsabers at Galaxy's Edge,
among thousands of other items.
So far, Disney has had mixed success appeasing these fans while
pulling in younger moviegoers with different expectations of what a
fable of good versus evil looks like in 2019.
"The Last Jedi" suffered a backlash after it seemed to
contradict key elements of previous films, upsetting a legion of
older fans who objected to what they felt were silly subplots and
story decisions that dismissed or perverted a mythology they grew
up with. Separately, some objected to the new generation of young
characters, and Hollywood's most family-friendly brand had to
reckon with racist and misogynistic attacks from a subset of fans
who said the films were bowing to political correctness by
featuring women and minorities in lead roles.
Lucasfilm had been working to develop intensely loyal fans since
its earliest days. In 1976, a year before the original Star Wars
premiered, Lucasfilm sent representatives to science-fiction fan
conventions with photos from the forthcoming film, and long lines
gathered outside theaters as it became a phenomenon in the summer
of 1977.
After buying Lucasfilm 35 years later, Disney was eager to tap
into the strong appetite for new movies -- and prove the worth of
the $4 billion purchase to Wall Street. While fans once had to wait
years for a new Star Wars, Disney has fast-tracked production by
releasing a new film every year.
Disney used the strategy with Pixar Animation, which it bought
in 2006, and Marvel Studios, which it bought in 2009. Pixar had
released six movies in the nine years before the acquisition. Once
in Disney's stable, it has churned out one movie every year except
one -- and released two features some years. At Marvel, producers
have made two movies most years since the Disney acquisition,
accelerating the pace to three a year more recently.
Pixar alternates sequels with original films spanning several
franchises, and Marvel has a large corps of characters to pull from
decades of comics. For Star Wars, with a much smaller set of
developed characters tied to a single cinematic story line, Disney
released "The Force Awakens" in 2015 and then made four movies in
the four years after that -- with only five months separating "The
Last Jedi" in December 2017 from "Solo" in May 2018. Some vocal,
longtime fans slammed what they called a rushed production schedule
and narrative whiplash.
Lucasfilm executives, including president Kathleen Kennedy,
lobbied Disney brass to postpone "Solo" until the 2018 Christmas
season, worried it was oversaturating the market, current and
former colleagues say. But Disney executives overruled the
arguments.
"Solo" premiered as scheduled and mostly fizzled with fans. It
collected $213 million domestically, the least of any Star Wars
film. Consumers have bought fewer toys with every release, and
attendance at the Star Wars theme-park attraction has fallen short
of expectations set by analysts, who projected record-setting
crowds.
The rush has impaired the long-term planning for where the
Skywalker saga and other Star Wars stories go from here. Rather
than take the Marvel approach and begin filming the first movie
with the end of the series in mind, Lucasfilm has largely
determined the overarching plot from movie to movie, former
employees say. That creates a clash since the multiple moving parts
of the Disney franchise machine depend on schedules, forward
planning and shared information.
When a videogame division at Disney approached the Lucasfilm
story group about a game that would take place in the time between
"The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi," videogame developers were
told the story group had no idea what was going to happen in "Last
Jedi," even though "Force Awakens" was close to wrapping
production, according to one of the former employees.
Since different directors were handling different films, "Last
Jedi" director Rian Johnson was forced to wait to see how "Force
Awakens" director J.J. Abrams would finish his movie before he
could finalize his own script. While Mr. Johnson was shooting "Last
Jedi," an installment that took the series in unexpected
directions, Lucasfilm executives had little idea how they would
wrap up the trilogy in the film that followed, the one premiering
this month, according to an executive who worked there at the
time.
Disney's film plans for the franchise appear up in the air
except for the announcement of three movies -- without details on
story lines or characters -- due out in 2022, 2024 and 2026. Each
title is slated for a release around Christmas.
Instead, fan focus has turned to "The Mandalorian," which has
been a crucial driver of subscribers to Disney's new streaming
service. So far, fans have largely embraced the spinoff's Western
tone and story line, which follows a faceless bounty hunter on
distant planets in the Skywalker universe. With "Mandalorian,"
Disney has found success straddling the old and the new by taking a
character inspired by the original trilogy and fleshing out his
story line with new genre and plot.
"Mandalorian" director Jon Favreau has said Disney opted not to
prepare Baby Yoda toys in time for the Christmas shopping season,
worried the products would spoil the character's reveal in the
closing minutes of the show's premiere in November. The decision to
delay a consumer-products push has led to a secondhand market of
Baby Yoda merchandise and pressured Disney to get toys to shelves
as soon as possible.
Disney has announced plans for two additional spinoff series for
its Disney+ streaming service, including one starring actor Ewan
McGregor reprising his role as Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. This
week, Disney announced a Star Wars-themed game show for the
streaming service, hosted by Ahmed Best, the actor best known for
playing Jar Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy.
Ms. Kennedy, the Lucasfilm president who was handpicked by Mr.
Lucas to take over months before he sold to Disney, has struggled
to bridge the pre- and post-Disney cultures at Lucasfilm,
associates and former colleagues say.
Ms. Kennedy declined to comment.
Ms. Kennedy is among the most successful producers in Hollywood
history, with credits that include "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and
"Jurassic Park." She started working with Steven Spielberg when he
was directing "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and at Lucasfilm she has
recruited young, up-and-coming directors who she thinks can update
the franchise for present-day audiences. Lucasfilm couldn't attract
bold, visionary directors if it expected to keep them on a short
leash, according to one "Last Jedi" producer.
That creative freedom has repeatedly clashed with Disney's need
to make a movie that simultaneously moves the story forward while
catering to some fans' nostalgic impulses, according to people who
have worked with the company on the new films. "The Force Awakens"
was criticized for hewing too closely to the 1977 classic, and "The
Last Jedi" criticized for taking the narrative in erratic
directions.
The result has been a revolving door of directors hired to great
public fanfare and fired when their narrative ambition edged too
far outside guidelines, or it became clear they weren't experienced
enough to handle $200 million megaproductions.
In just five years, half a dozen directors have been fired or
left projects midfilming or ahead of future installments, and in
the past several months Lucasfilm story architects who conceived of
recent films have left. The producers of the new Star Wars trilogy
scheduled to start in 2022, "Game of Thrones" television show
creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, abandoned the project in
October. The two also have a producing deal with Netflix Inc.,
which has become a top rival to Disney since it launched
Disney+.
The original director of this month's "Rise of Skywalker," Colin
Trevorrow, got the job on the strength of his 2015 blockbuster
"Jurassic World," but several scripts he submitted to Ms. Kennedy
were rejected as the two disagreed about where to take the
Skywalker saga in its final film. Ms. Kennedy fired him in
September 2017.
She replaced him with Mr. Abrams, who had originally only
planned on directing "The Force Awakens." Bringing him back to
conclude the trilogy is seen by many in Hollywood as the safest
choice for appeasing die-hard fans, since Mr. Abrams is best known
for nostalgia-laden updates to franchises including "Star Trek" and
"Mission: Impossible."
Disney has shown a willingness to push Star Wars in new
directions in other venues. Mr. Iger ordered the Galaxy's Edge
theme park attraction to be based on Batuu, a planet new to the
series, rather than on Tatooine, the home of Luke Skywalker, which
would have been catnip for die-hard fans. On Batuu, Disney can park
the Millennium Falcon, flown in Mr. Lucas's original film, next to
the ship piloted by Kylo Ren in the current trilogy.
"I don't want to be stuck in the past," Mr. Iger said, as he
attended the opening at Disneyland earlier this year.
Forging into new territory backfired among some fans with "The
Last Jedi, " who said Mr. Johnson, the director, seemed to make a
movie that had little relation to Mr. Abrams's "The Force Awakens"
from just two years earlier.
"The Last Jedi" implied Rey, the central protagonist of the new
movies, is not a descendant of a powerful Jedi or other storied
lineage, as previous Star Wars heroes have been. It defied
traditional Star Wars physics by turning hyperspace travel into a
kamikaze trick capable of destroying an enemy's fleet. Worst of
all, in the eyes of some fans, it killed off their hero, Luke
Skywalker.
Jay Wilson, a 45-year-old fan from Ault, Colo., had trouble
sleeping the night he saw it. He went back to the theater three
more times. "I couldn't let it go," he said. "I had to find
something in this movie that was my Star Wars." He still bought a
Blu-ray of the film when it was released and plans to see "The Rise
of Skywalker" on opening night.
Star Wars is "political in a sense that it has a foundation in
historical politics -- the rise of dictatorships, the death of
democracy -- but it has never tried to take a stand on present-day
issues," said Howard Roffman, a former executive in charge of
franchise management at Lucasfilm who joined the company in 1980
and left about two years ago. Now, though, some viewers "attribute
contemporary motives to the content" of the new films, he said.
Mr. Horn, the Disney studio chief, and Lucasfilm executives have
sought to diversify the casts to meet contemporary audiences'
expectations and also in a nod to the reality of a global
marketplace where a majority of box-office grosses come from
overseas.
The bitter political fights dividing the U.S. have spilled over
to the reactions to the movies, especially when it comes to some of
the new movies' female characters. Kelly Marie Tran, a daughter of
Vietnam refugees who joined the franchise with "The Last Jedi,"
said she left social media six months after the movie's release due
to unrelenting racist and sexist harassment from Star Wars fans who
didn't think she belonged in the films.
The story lines of both the current trilogy and the spinoff
"Rogue One," released in 2016, revolve around a heroine and have
multiple, central female characters, a big shift from the original
movies, in which Princess Leia was the only noteworthy female
character.
"I'm all for equality," said Anthony Ergo, a 42-year-old fan
from Liverpool, England. "But it felt like it was the promotion of
female characters, but at the expense of male characters."
Lifelong Star Wars fan Breana Ceballos is happy with the
direction Disney has taken with the franchise she grew to love as a
child, watching the original movies with her father. "I feel like
as long as the message is good and it's relevant to the world
today, it's probably a good thing to have," said Ms. Ceballos, a 33
year-old resident of Irvine, Calif.
"Rey is going her own way and finding her own path. I want my
daughter to feel like she can do anything," she said.
Not all of the criticism took a political bent. Some fans took
issue with the "Last Jedi" plot, which introduced new tertiary
characters and, according to critics, dedicated too much time to
subplots involving a side trip to a casino and lengthy interludes
following a solitary Luke Skywalker living in exile alongside
nun-like alien creatures.
Social media has amplified the fights. Vito Gesualdi, a Los
Angeles-based graphic designer, produced a YouTube video titled
"Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a Complete Cinematic Failure,"
which dissects what he sees as narrative missteps in the film. It
has nearly eight million views, and Mr. Gesualdi said the ad
revenue from his 20-minute diatribe (the movie "takes one of the
most beloved franchises of all time, throws it into the trunk of a
car and then backs it into a river") earned him enough to pay more
than a year's rent.
Disagreements about the politics of "Last Jedi" have grown so
ugly that Russian trolls have identified Star Wars debates on
social media as places to sow discord, akin to online discussions
about Hillary Clinton or Black Lives Matter, according to a report
published by Morten Bay, a research fellow at the University of
Southern California.
He cited instances in which Russian troll farms planted
incendiary comments about Star Wars into online forums, simply to
rile people up. It "helps spread the perception that America is
divided and in chaos," he wrote.
The disinformation campaign has made it hard for Lucasfilm
executives and members of a story group charged with plotting the
franchise's trajectory to understand fans' true concerns, one
former story-group member said. Did racism spurred by online trolls
drive their rejection of Ms. Tran's character, or was it a broader
issue of how her character's arc was developed in the film? "What's
the note behind the note?" the person said. Often, the person
added, fan responses boil down to "Don't change a thing I
love."
Others say the Star Wars films haven't been updated enough. The
novel introducing the "Last Jedi" character Vice Admiral Holdo,
later played by Laura Dern in the film, suggested she was pansexual
and interested in mates beyond "humanoid males." But the movie made
no reference to the orientation, and some fans saw it as a missed
opportunity to present a broader range of sexual orientation on
screen.
"It doesn't have to be the main character. Just somebody in the
story," said Jeff Lassiter, a Chicagoan who attended Star Wars
Celebration, an annual gathering of enthusiastic fans held in
Chicago this year, in a Darth Vader helmet painted Pepto-Bismol
pink.
"People say, 'It's not my Star Wars,' " he said describing some
fans' complaints about the kinds of changes he is seeking. But he
asked: Why is it "your" Star Wars and not mine?
When Mr. Iger showed "The Force Awakens" to Mr. Lucas ahead of
its release, the Star Wars creator couldn't believe how much the
new movie seemed to resemble the old, Mr. Iger recalled. Just as in
the original film, this one was about two men and a woman who join
a rebellion to destroy a megaweapon, and even also starred Harrison
Ford, Carrie Fisher and C-3PO.
"We are walking a very fine line," Mr. Iger said he told him.
"If we don't satisfy the most ardent fan, we'd be killed."
The new "Rise of Skywalker" is still expected to be a
blockbuster, and those alienated by "The Last Jedi" have turned to
Mr. Abrams with hope. One executive who has worked with Mr. Abrams
said the director is keeping longtime fans in mind, saying it is
like an invisible fan is whispering in his ear during story
meetings.
Following the conclusion of the Skywalker trilogy this month,
Mr. Iger said he wants the next set of movies to be more accessible
to common moviegoers unburdened by decades of Star Wars memories.
But he knows that will likely alienate some fans. "You can't make
everyone happy," he said.
If you're not going to update a property, he said, "you might as
well stick it in a museum and watch it get old."
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 06, 2019 15:40 ET (20:40 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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