From a financial perspective, Star Wars is healthier than ever. It makes money hand over fist, and all its overlords are blessed with making snow angels out of all the coke they can afford.
Money aside, the fandom hasn’t been this divided since the prequels and it has escalated after the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. There’s a feeling there’s no real synergy between the different media departments telling Star Wars stories—and quite frankly, it shows in the disjointed storytelling. It also doesn’t help that Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy literally forgot about the whole expanded universe.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Kennedy said, “Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels. We don’t have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be.”
Yikes. If anything, Kennedy’s remarks show there’s a need for a person to stitch this large universe together and create some rules for the sandbox. An architect. Someone like the person behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Kevin Feige.
In fact, there are already rumours that Feige will be jumping ship from the MCU to Star Wars in the near future, due to him being revealed as a producer for a new film set in a galaxy far, far away. However, this could simply be a testing of the waters. If Feige’s project does the business and receives acclaim, he might have to shift his stationery to another office in Disney’s group.
It makes sense, though. After all, what more is there for Feige to achieve in the MCU? He’s built the most successful film franchise in the history of cinema, delivered the highest-grossing film of all time, and achieved more goodwill among fans than any other producer. There’s nothing more for him to achieve, except to do it all over again.
The MCU is in a relaxed space as well. It’s already prepared for the next phase and holds more character rights after the Disney-Fox deal. With Disney’s dominance at the box office and the introduction of Disney+, there will be no shortage of Marvel content and everyone knows it. The universe doesn’t need Feige anymore, nor does he need it.
It’s no secret that Feige is a self-confessed Star Wars fan and it must hurt him to see the discord among the fanbase. And let’s face it: he has all the tools to fix the hiccups. He understands how to juggle big egos, studio execs’ meddling, fan expectation and the importance of telling a good, cohesive story. He gets what makes money and what makes people happy. Maybe Feige helming Star Wars isn’t so far off but merely an inevitability.
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