> The "point" of buying Lucasarts from Disnye's point of view was to apply a lot of money and some of the magic they've used on the Marvel franchise to make a truly vast amount of money, get a bunch of critical acclaim, and set up the franchise as a money spinning machine that will keep filling theatres for spinoff movies every year forever. Instead they merely made a very large amount of money, the critics said the last movie stunk, and the fanbase seems deeply disinterested in more movies, which had led to them cancelling a bunch of planned movies.
Sounds like they shouldn't care what the fans think. I mean, existing comic book readers aren't the target audience for the Marvel movies anymore. If they want Star Wars to reach similar success, then they need to build a loyal fan base an order of magnitude larger, of which traditional fans make up only a small amount.
> If they want Star Wars to reach similar success, then they need to build a loyal fan base an order of magnitude larger, of which traditional fans make up only a small amount.
That's exactly what they were trying to do, yes. Not just sell a bunch of tickets to people that will watch whatever popcorn flick is showing, but to create and expand a new, young, dedicated fanbase. The problem is, it doesn't seem to have worked. :)
(Some of the most rabid Star Wars fan I know are in their early 20s, were nuts about Star Wars, loved TFA, loved Rogue one, but have been steadily growing cooler as the Disney trilogy advanced. And every time Disney changed course to make one group happy, another got even more outraged, until eventually everyone was upset. I know people who saw TFA in theatres several times, TLJ twice, and then ended up not buying a ticket for TRoS. Anecdotal, of course, but the box office and CinemaScore support it, and the way Disney had cancelled or postponed a ton of projects suggests it's widespread.)
Sounds like they shouldn't care what the fans think. I mean, existing comic book readers aren't the target audience for the Marvel movies anymore. If they want Star Wars to reach similar success, then they need to build a loyal fan base an order of magnitude larger, of which traditional fans make up only a small amount.