The Mandalorian Season 2

[Peelee]

Not so much "wasn't allowed" as much as "no one had interest in working with SW anymore, because they had lost faith in the franchise, so the producers of The Mandalorian got little to no oversight".

And "made 5 billions" is quite disingenuous way of putting way... It ignores the cost of the movies' productions, the dwindling ticket sales with each movie, and merch sales going down so badly that the CEO of two major toy companies straight up said there was no demand for it.

Nobody having interest in working with SW anymore and losing faith in the franchise, so a high-profile SW flagship show was planned to spearhead Disney's streaming service?

Well, that's certainly an interesting theory.

[Lemmy]

Nobody having interest in working with SW anymore and losing faith in the franchise, so a high-profile SW flagship show was planned to spearhead Disney's streaming service?

Well, that's certainly an interesting theory.

It's almost as if it were already in production...

But hey, maybe it's indeed a case of "people who made the franchise lose all of its vigor and fan enthusiasm suddenly made one good show completely different from what they did in the movies, even though by all reports, they had little to no interest in said show"...

Now... That is an interesting theory.

[Peelee]

It's almost as if it were already in production...

But hey, maybe it's indeed a case of "people who made the franchise lose all of its vigor and fan enthusiasm suddenly made one good show completely different from what they did in the movies, even though by all reports, they had little to no interest in said show"...

Now... That is an interesting theory.

It is indeed! Of course, it's interesting in the sense of backseat speculation on the business decisions of a Fortune 50 company with no inside knowledge and no sources and based purely on the personal feelings of the last few products is interesting.

Anyway. You'll forgive me if I give zero credence to such theories.

[Lemmy]

It is indeed! Of course, it's interesting in the sense of backseat speculation on the business decisions of a Fortune 50 company with no inside knowledge and no sources and based purely on the personal feelings of the last few products is interesting.

Anyway. You'll forgive me if I give zero credence to such theories.

Sure. All I can do is follow the news on the productions from diverse sources, but by no means I claim to be the owner of absolute truth. It's perfectly fine not to believe me. We are both random joes on the internet, after all. Although a lot of what I said is very easily verifiable by anyone.

And I'll give about as much credence to your theory that KK or Iger was indeed in any way responsible for the quality and success of The Mandalorian, considering you have as much credibility as I do.

So... Agree to disagree, I suppose.

[Peelee]

Sure. All I can do is follow the news on the productions from diverse sources, but by no means I claim to be the owner of absolute truth. It's perfectly fine not to believe me. We are both random joes on the internet, after all.

And I'll give about as much credence to your theory that KK or Iger was indeed in any way responsible for the quality and success of The Mandalorian, considering you have as much credibility as I do.

So... Agree to disagree, I suppose.

Oh, I absolutely have no source. I simply rely on the idea that, as you yourself pointed out, The Mandalorian started production before everyone at Disney lost faith in Star Wars as a product, so Kathleen Kennedy would have no reason to not be attached to it as she was to the movies. By your own logic.

[Mechalich]

I don't think Kathleen Kennedy has any more or less direct control over the Mandalorian than she did over the ST, it's just that Mandalorian has a single, unified creative team and the ST didn't.

The Mandalorian has had at least a half-dozen directors for individual episodes to this point. Heck, Carl Weathers got to direct himself in the most recent episode. But it's clearly one show, with one overarching creative vision, and you'd better believe that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have tight controls over what elements are and are not featured in any given episode.

The ST didn't have that. JJ Abrams was given free reign with episode VII and Rian Johnson was given complete creative control to do whatever he wanted with Episode VIII as writer and director (this is on record). The result was a movie, TLJ, that simply does not fit alongside the three sequels or the overall arc of the nine numbered episode films. This is absolutely true whatever you happen to think of TLJ's merits as an individual film. Kathleen Kennedy, ultimately, bears the lion's share of responsibility for that decision. There's pretty much no other person who could be responsible. And it really is rather amazing how anyone though giving complete creative control to someone for part 8 of 9 of any production whatsoever was a good idea, let alone Star Wars, which had already experienced the disastrous effects of multiple creators who don't get along only a few years earlier (most notably with regard to the Karen Traviss debacle in the Legacy of the Force series of nine novels).

Having a single creative overseer doesn't insure a production will be good by any means, and we can raise the PT as exhibit A there, but it at least means the result will have a minimum of internal coherency.

[Peelee]

I don't think Kathleen Kennedy has any more or less direct control over the Mandalorian than she did over the ST, it's just that Mandalorian has a single, unified creative team and the ST didn't.

The Mandalorian has had at least a half-dozen directors for individual episodes to this point. Heck, Carl Weathers got to direct himself in the most recent episode. But it's clearly one show, with one overarching creative vision, and you'd better believe that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have tight controls over what elements are and are not featured in any given episode.

The ST didn't have that. JJ Abrams was given free reign with episode VII and Rian Johnson was given complete creative control to do whatever he wanted with Episode VIII as writer and director (this is on record). The result was a movie, TLJ, that simply does not fit alongside the three sequels or the overall arc of the nine numbered episode films. This is absolutely true whatever you happen to think of TLJ's merits as an individual film. Kathleen Kennedy, ultimately, bears the lion's share of responsibility for that decision. There's pretty much no other person who could be responsible. And it really is rather amazing how anyone though giving complete creative control to someone for part 8 of 9 of any production whatsoever was a good idea, let alone Star Wars, which had already experienced the disastrous effects of multiple creators who don't get along only a few years earlier (most notably with regard to the Karen Traviss debacle in the Legacy of the Force series of nine novels).

Having a single creative overseer doesn't insure a production will be good by any means, and we can raise the PT as exhibit A there, but it at least means the result will have a minimum of internal coherency.

Now this I can mostly agree with. I fully blame Kathleen Kennedy for getting Abrams involved, but that's not a "if I was your boss I'd fire you over that alone" issue, considering her history as a producer. I still hold that Abrams must bear the weight of everything that went wrong, since he was the one that threw all the wrenches in all the gears.

[dancrilis]

Now this I can mostly agree with. I fully blame Kathleen Kennedy for getting Abrams involved, but that's not a "if I was your boss I'd fire you over that alone" issue, considering her history as a producer. I still hold that Abrams must bear the weight of everything that went wrong, since he was the one that threw all the wrenches in all the gears.

I would disagree.

The Force Awakens was by no means a good movie but it also wasn't death to the trilogy and was enjoyable enough on its own (if you didn't think about it too much) - and it left a lot to build on (arguable too much).
The real problem was The Last Jedi which didn't build on anything and burned a lot down around it.
That left The Rise of Skywalker to pick through the flaming wreckage and make piece together what it could without doing even more damage.

Now I am hesitant to blame any one individual for this perhaps if Abrams or Johnson had been in charge for all three movies it might have been fine - and maybe the drafts that Kennedy was sent read a lot better then what was delivered (and maybe meddling occured elsewhere also impacting their decisions to split things between different directors).

Put ultimately I think that the sequel trilogy was significantly worse then the prequel trilogy - which is a shame, and makes me feel a bit sympathetic to those involved in the prequels for all the hate they got, apparently it is not easy to make a Star Wars trilogy.

On the Mandalorian:
I am so far liking Season 2 better then Season 1 - wondering if others agree or disagree?

[Sapphire Guard]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If we're going to speculate on how much involvement particular people had on particular productions, I'm going to expect hard evidence from inside sources. Reputable journalism, not Youtube.

That tends to go wrong. It leads to things like blaming Peter Jackson for the love triangle he was forced to put into the Hobbit, or thinking than George's films were saved by the people around him (which is false, btw).

[Mechalich]

Now this I can mostly agree with. I fully blame Kathleen Kennedy for getting Abrams involved, but that's not a "if I was your boss I'd fire you over that alone" issue, considering her history as a producer. I still hold that Abrams must bear the weight of everything that went wrong, since he was the one that threw all the wrenches in all the gears.

There are plenty of things that went wrong with the management of Lucasfilm as a whole after Disney acquired the franchise at the upper managerial level that have nothing to do with the ST though. The way the Legends Expanded universe was killed off was (and to some extent still is) a public relations catastrophe among the hardcore fanbase. Disney managed to get the worst opinions circulating in gamer fanspace regarding EA all over themselves in an easily preventable way. The production of Solo was an absolute disaster that resulted a Star Wars film actually losing money at the box office even though Solo is arguably a better film than any of the ST movies. The initial cancellation of TCW infuriated the fans and probably cost Rebels a level of core support it never regained. The animated Star Wars Resistance series made a curious choice to change to a distinctively inferior animation style and was a massive failure (claims that it was only intended to run two seasons and wasn't canceled are pure denialism). The new EU has largely been a mess, with many of the novels being roundly panned or forced to cover for issues in the movies and the supposed promise of a single united universe instead of the mess of Legends retconning revealed to be utterly false despite some genuinely good runs (Dr. Aphra is genuinely great, would love to see her get a Mandalorian cameo).

The Disney Era of Star Wars has had a lot of questionable moves and only two generally accepted successes: TCW Season 7 which only exists because of massive fan pressure, and The Mandalorian which just happens to unite the lead figure behind TCW (Filoni) with one of the most practiced hands in franchise filmmaking working today (Favreau).

Overall it has not gone particularly well. Mandalorian was hailed as the savior of Star Wars when it premiered last year for good reason.

[Lemmy]

Oh, I absolutely have no source. I simply rely on the idea that, as you yourself pointed out, The Mandalorian started production before everyone at Disney lost faith in Star Wars as a product, so Kathleen Kennedy would have no reason to not be attached to it as she was to the movies. By your own logic.

She was already tied to the movies, though. But by the time TRoS came out, they had already lost faith in the product... And rightfully so.
There's literally two CEO of toy companies saying, independently, and is separate interviews, that there's no demand for SW merchandise.

[Peelee]

On the Mandalorian:
I am so far liking Season 2 better then Season 1 - wondering if others agree or disagree?

Totally agree. I think it's doing more worldbuilding

She was already tied to the movies, though. But by the time TRoS came out, they had already lost faith in the product... And rightfully so.

As you yourself noted, The Mandalorian was in production a year before ROS came out (and the majority of episodes had released before ROS came out to boot). Your argument is thus that everyone lost faith in Star Wars to the point that they removed Kathleen Kennedy from being in control of The Mandalorian well after The Mandalorian was produced and released. I normally hate this saying, but it's just too on the nose - you have created Schrodinger's Kennedy, where she is both creating a flagship show for Disney+ and also has zero control because nobody has faith in Star Wars. That simply doesn't work.

[Petrocorus]

It is?
Like, in my analogy, Kathleen Kennedy is Bob and Abrams is Steve.

Oh my...
I completely misread your comment and though you were saying Bob was the one to blame.

And i believe Bob is.
If Bob hires Steve who is known for being an average driver, then gives him complete control over his driving, navigation, schedule, and budget without any plan or instruction whatsoever, then Bob is to blame when Steve messes up.

KK fired the first guy she hired (forgot his name) because he said he needed 3 years to make the movie instead of 2.
Then refused to plan the whole trilogy beforehand (as the said guy apparently wanted).
Then hired JJA and gave him a lot a freedom despite his record as a good director but poor writer (but oddly successful despite this).
Then hired RJ and gave him apparently complete freedom to direct a movie on which he should not have freedom by definition (the second part of a trilogy) and despite the fact the first movie had a huge lack of context and set up. And RJ said Disney still had no plan for the trilogy when they hired him.
Then re-hired JJA (despite the mess of the first movie) to try to fix everything up in one single movie.

And then used the same recipe with Solo.

And she's also to blame for the policy of bashing fans who critic the movies.

The President of Lucasfilm was not allowed to have control over Lucasfilm because she made Disney nearly five billion dollars out of three movies?

There are rumors that Favreau tried to forbid her to be in any way involved in it.
Whether this rumors come from actual leaks or from fans' wishes, IDK.

And i don't think the movies made 5 billions, much closer to 4 billions.
Which is frankly not that big by today's standards. Something close to half a dozen movie reached the billion mark in 2019 alone.
This is Star Wars. If the movies had been good, the trilogy would have made 6 billions, maybe 7.
The very fact the last movie is the one which made the lowest gross is already a sign something was wrong.

And when you factor each movie had a budget close or above 300 millions, and a publicity budget which is at least as big, and that (from what i found on the net) 45% of gross go to distribution, then i'm really not sure the whole trilogy has been that profitable for Disney.
They certainly didn't lose money, but they certainly earned less than what they expected.

That tends to go wrong. It leads to things like blaming Peter Jackson for the love triangle he was forced to put into the Hobbit,

He was forced to do this?

The Disney Era of Star Wars has had a lot of questionable moves and only two generally accepted successes: TCW Season 7 which only exists because of massive fan pressure, and The Mandalorian which just happens to unite the lead figure behind TCW (Filoni) with one of the most practiced hands in franchise filmmaking working today (Favreau).

You mean to tell me Rebels was not a success?

[dancrilis]

The very fact the last movie is the one which made the lowest gross is already a sign something was wrong.

This is the same as the first trilogy:
A New Hope has the highest gross, followed by The Empire Strikes Back followed by Return of the Jedi.
Source.

I am actually a bit surprised it is not the same for the prequels.

[Peelee]

This is the same as the first trilogy:
A New Hope has the highest gross, followed by The Empire Strikes Back followed by Return of the Jedi.
Source.

I am actually a bit surprised it is not the same for the prequels.

Prequels still had the first one come out on top, it just managed to have the third make more than the second. Regardless, the first one of the trilogy got the most money in all three trilogies, and neither of the followups matched the first one in all three trilogies.

[Mechalich]

You mean to tell me Rebels was not a success?

I think it's fairly mixed. On its own merits, as a kid-friendly piece of Star Wars animation, then yes, Rebels qualifies as a success. However, as the series that replaced TCW, probably not. It had (and has, though the existence of Disney+ may be slowly leveling up the back end) considerably fewer viewers than TCW did, particularly initially and relied on importing a series of extremely popular TCW and EU characters in Ahsoka, Maul, Rex, Thrawn, etc. in order to boost its popularity after a disappointing first season. It also simply doesn't have the same level of favorability among the fans that TCW does, in part because as an adult viewer you really have to fight through a lot of 'oh, right, kid-friendly' moments than hurt the plot and dramatic tension (it's truly amazing how many times Zeb charges blaster wielding stormtroopers in order to thrown them into a wall or punch them out rather than just shooting them instead).

If Disney is able to build on Rebels in an effective way, then it will qualify as a solid success. At the moment this seems to depend on them parlaying an appearance by Ahsoka (and possibly Sabine Wren) in The Mandalorian into getting more episodes made where they actually track down what happened to Ezra and Thrawn.

[Peelee]

as an adult viewer you really have to fight through a lot of 'oh, right, kid-friendly' moments than hurt the plot and dramatic tension (it's truly amazing how many times Zeb charges blaster wielding stormtroopers in order to thrown them into a wall or punch them out rather than just shooting them instead).

Ezra's "laser slingshot" was so much worse for me. I don't know why. It just reeked of unnecessary censorship.

[Petrocorus]

Prequels still had the first one come out on top, it just managed to have the third make more than the second. Regardless, the first one of the trilogy got the most money in all three trilogies, and neither of the followups matched the first one in all three trilogies.

This is the same as the first trilogy:
A New Hope has the highest gross, followed by The Empire Strikes Back followed by Return of the Jedi.
Source.

I am actually a bit surprised it is not the same for the prequels.

I stand corrected.
I was sure RotJ made a huge gross. I may have been skewed by the prequels because i knew RotS had made good. But way below TPM apparently.

Though here is a list of highest grossing film adjusted for inflation. The number may seems low, but it's only the domestic gross apparently.

There is the list of highest grossing film of 2019. 9 of them made 1 billion or more, 8 of those 9 were Disney.

Ezra's "laser slingshot" was so much worse for me. I don't know why. It just reeked of unnecessary censorship.

This was certainly a good riddance.
I found the whole thing ridiculous and was so glad Ezra had his lightsaber so soon because of this.

[Rakaydos]

I disagree with the hate against Kathleen Kennedy - she has a long and very well-established career as being a positive force on cinematic ideas and has produced a large number of some of the most culturally loved movies in history, such as Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and E.T., along with numerous other movies.

If Bob hires Steve for a delivery job and Steve wrecks the company car, I'm going to blame Steve way more I'll blame Bob, especially if Bob has a proven track record.

In ESB the stormtroopers herd Luke to the carbon freezing chamber. The last thing you want as a stormtrooper is to tick off Darth Vader, and blasting the person that he has set up an enormous trap and tortured people for some time to get would probably do that. Missing intentionally and doing so in a way that seems as if you are trying to hit is definite competence, I would claim. Also they shoot Leia in two different movies.

Yeah, that's just more going with the joke that I dislike. Luke claimed he couldn't see a thing in the helmet in ANH while getting in the elevator, and then when exiting the elevator had perfect aim and was able to help clear the room. If anything, Luke's line should be taken to mean because he hasn't been properly trained to use the helmet's capabilities. Rex has no excuse.

I'd be more impressed by Han helping clear a room in a helmet he couldnt see out of. At that point in ANH, Luke had already demonstrated the ability to defend himself while blinded by a helmet.

[Peelee]

I'd be more impressed by Han helping clear a room in a helmet he couldnt see out of. At that point in ANH, Luke had already demonstrated the ability to defend himself while blinded by a helmet.

Defend with a melee weapon, not attack with a ranged weapon.

[lowfyr]

Not so much "wasn't allowed" as much as "no one had interest in working with SW anymore, because they had lost faith in the franchise, so the producers of The Mandalorian got little to no oversight".

And "made 5 billions" is quite disingenuous way of putting way... It ignores the cost of the movies' productions, the dwindling ticket sales with each movie, and merch sales going down so badly that the CEO of two major toy companies straight up said there was no demand for it.

It's actually quite telling that the one good Disney SW production is the one that had little to no involvement from KK, Iger and/or Abrams.

If that were true, how did the producers of the show manage to get the money for it?

Even the last movie made Disney a lot of money. And yes that includes the costs for it. The only one that did not was Solo.
And seeing that they are still able to put Star Wars on nearly every possible product, I am not really worried about it.

[Fyraltari]

He was forced to do this?

Most likely, yes. There was no love triangle until the reshoots of Desolation of Smaug and Tauriel's actress had originally been promised there wouldn't be any. While I don't know how much control Jackson had over any changes, it's a well-known fact he didn't want to make these movies in the firdt place.

God, the production of this trilogy was such a trainwreck. There's footage of Orlando Bloom, in costume, on set of movie #2 wondering aloud wether they're doing 2 or 3 movies. I recommend Lindsay Ellis' video essais on the subject to get a grasp of how bad everything got.

[Mechalich]

If that were true, how did the producers of the show manage to get the money for it?

The Mandalorian was used as a loss leader for the launch of Disney+. To some extent it still is. The cost behind making episodes of the show are staggering (though the awesome video screen technology they developed to make it that's poised to revolutionize the industry changes the calculations in complicated ways), both in terms of casting, practical and digital effects, and whatever disturbingly large sum Jon Favreau is being paid to run the whole thing. It is highly questionable whether even a show as popular as it is would be able to survive at the budgetary point it operates if it was expected to support itself just as a show.

Even the last movie made Disney a lot of money. And yes that includes the costs for it.

A lot is highly relative. TROS had a worldwide gross of 1075 million. It had a budget of 275 million and a very large advertising campaign. Call it 425 million put together. It had a roughly even domestic/foreign box office split - 515 domestic, 560 foreign. Disney probably received about 310 million (roughly 60%) from the domestic box office, and around 250 million (roughly 45%) from the collected foreign box office, or 560 total. So that's a profit of...135 million dollars.

Compare that to Aladdin, released in the same year. Total gross 1050 million. Budget 183 million with a somewhat more modest advertising campaign. Call it 385 put together. It's splits are more weighted to foreign box office 355/695, with the Disney receipts at 213+312 or 525 total, for a profit of...140 million dollars. So Aladdin was actually the more profitable movie despite grossing less and having significantly less favorable domestic/foreign splits (which I'm probably exaggerating, very much a back of the envelop estimate) because of it's significantly lesser budget.

What the studio gets out at the end depends very much on what gets put in. Of the top ten films of 2019, TROS was probably the least profitable, and while Avengers: Endgame was the most profitable because it was an all time record-breaking smash, the second most profitable was Joker, despite only being the 6th highest gross, because it's budget was comparatively so low.

Also, aside from Solo all other Star Wars films of the Disney Era have had their box offices grosses artificially boosted by being released during the holiday season with limited competition - a timing factor of great importance that is evident in the equally phenomenal gross of Aquaman the one recent holiday that did not have a Star Wars release. It is entirely possible that had TROS been released during the crowded summer movie season it would have lost money.

Star Wars remains profitable in the Disney Era, yes. This is demonstrably true, but it's profit margins have slipped in the movie market and its toy sales have tanked - and while toy sales are dropping in all markets due to changes in the nature of children's activities Star Wars has done worse than franchises it competes against. The video game market does appear to have recovered after a slump though. Books and comics are hard to get data on but they're such a small overall component that it doesn't matter anyway. The most-of-a-decade of Disney management has been rough going, though it's certainly done better than some other franchises in roughly the same space like DC.

[Petrocorus]

Most likely, yes. There was no love triangle until the reshoots of Desolation of Smaug and Tauriel's actress had originally been promised there wouldn't be any. While I don't know how much control Jackson had over any changes, it's a well-known fact he didn't want to make these movies in the firdt place.

I did not know this.
Do you mean he didn't want to make 3 movies, or that he didn't want to make any of this?

God, the production of this trilogy was such a trainwreck. There's footage of Orlando Bloom, in costume, on set of movie #2 wondering aloud wether they're doing 2 or 3 movies. I recommend Lindsay Ellis' video essais on the subject to get a grasp of how bad everything got.

Thanks.

A lot is highly relative. TROS had a worldwide gross of 1075 million. It had a budget of 275 million and a very large advertising campaign. Call it 425 million put together. It had a roughly even domestic/foreign box office split - 515 domestic, 560 foreign. Disney probably received about 310 million (roughly 60%) from the domestic box office, and around 250 million (roughly 45%) from the collected foreign box office, or 560 total. So that's a profit of...135 million dollars.

How do you evaluate the cost of promotion and advertising?
This is the one thing i cannot find when i try to make calculations.
I always see people saying this cost is about the same as the production budget.

Also, aside from Solo all other Star Wars films of the Disney Era have had their box offices grosses artificially boosted by being released during the holiday season with limited competition - a timing factor of great importance that is evident in the equally phenomenal gross of Aquaman the one recent holiday that did not have a Star Wars release. It is entirely possible that had TROS been released during the crowded summer movie season it would have lost money.

Star Wars remains profitable in the Disney Era, yes. This is demonstrably true, but it's profit margins have slipped in the movie market and its toy sales have tanked - and while toy sales are dropping in all markets due to changes in the nature of children's activities Star Wars has done worse than franchises it competes against. The video game market does appear to have recovered after a slump though. Books and comics are hard to get data on but they're such a small overall component that it doesn't matter anyway. The most-of-a-decade of Disney management has been rough going, though it's certainly done better than some other franchises in roughly the same space like DC.

My own evaluation of the Disney Star Wars movies' overall profit goes from 630 millions (promotion cost = budget) to 1,9 billions (promotion cost =0), based on the BoxOffice Mojo numbers. The reality is probably somewhere in between.
In any case, this is far from the 4 billions Disney paid for Lucasfilm and that they probably wanted to get back ASAP given how fast they rushed this 5 movies.

[Dire_Flumph]

My own evaluation of the Disney Star Wars movies' overall profit goes from 630 millions (promotion cost = budget) to 1,9 billions (promotion cost =0), based on the BoxOffice Mojo numbers. The reality is probably somewhere in between.
In any case, this is far from the 4 billions Disney paid for Lucasfilm and that they probably wanted to get back ASAP given how fast they rushed this 5 movies.

In the immortal words of Yogurt "Moichandising! Where da real money from da movie is made!"

I have little doubt that Disney has made back its purchase price and then some. Estimates come in at billions per year on Star Wars merchandising. (Several sources, but here's a good one)

The movies (like the Marvel films) as much as they make at the box office are but the foot in the door to get the absolutely massive tie-in merchandising machine running.

[Petrocorus]

In the immortal words of Yogurt "Moichandising! Where da real money from da movie is made!"

I have little doubt that Disney has made back its purchase price and then some. Estimates come in at billions per year on Star Wars merchandising. (Several sources, but here's a good one)

The movies (like the Marvel films) as much as they make at the box office are but the foot in the door to get the absolutely massive tie-in merchandising machine running.

Yogurt is a wise guy and knows what he's talking about.
I do believe Disney wanted Star Wars for making profit on merchandizing. But i also think they expected the movies to pay for the purchase.
The movie made money, but clearly not as much as they could. And AFAIK, the toys sells were declining already before the covid, and the galaxy edge ticket sells too.
And the numbers given in this article are gross, not actual profit for Disney.
So, yes, maybe in total they made back the purchase price, and more, but not on the movies alone, and they certainly earned less than what could be expected.

[Sapphire Guard]

Hollywood accounting being what it is, speculations as to profit and loss is mostly pulling numbers out of the air.

Rebels is what it is. It's not a kid's show's fault that it is a kid's show. I was fond of Season 1, it lost me later on when it decided it had to tie into every single dangling plot thread, and meet every single major character in the galaxy.

On the Mandalorian:
I am so far liking Season 2 better then Season 1 - wondering if others agree or disagree?

They both have good production values and problematic writing. It seems to be having the same problem as Rebels, where it can't decide if it wants to be a low key, low stakes show in the background or wants to tie into every possible dangling plot thread to the point of losing its own story. So it shoots for both and misses both.

[Tyndmyr]

If we're talking about sequels, I must point out that in addition to the trilogy, Solo was particularly bad(I will happily expand on this in a spoiler if folks disagree). That makes it harder to credit any one director with all of the problems, and speaks to having a bit of an issue with a lack of an overall plan. That isn't *just* on KK, probably, but it likely includes her.

There was also a rumor that she was banned from the set of the Mandalorian for all of S2. I can't verify if that's true or not, and it's probably at least a bit of an overstatement, but it does appear probable that the Mandalorian had a bit of a freer hand. It certainly has a very different feel from all four of those films(five if we're fair and include Rebels).

It may be simply that the movies were higher profile, and got more attention while the show was being planned/started. More freedom for the creators can sometimes work out well. There's a bit of luck involved if you go with that theory, since creator freedom sometimes also explodes, but hey. Whatever the case, the Mandalorian certainly is far better plotted than the films have been.

[Sapphire Guard]

It seems, well, extremely unlikely, that anyone involved in the Mandalorian had the power to prevent the President of Lucasfilm from visiting if she wanted to.

Spoiler: Mandalorian

Show

Mando has significant plotting problems, to be honest. They introduce that tracking fob early on, and then have to completely forget about it because it's story breaking once it moves beyond the early episodes, because it means Baby Yodaling should've been easy for Gideon to find in the finale.

That's a very basic failure.

[Peelee]

It seems, well, extremely unlikely, that anyone involved in the Mandalorian had the power to prevent the President of Lucasfilm from visiting if she wanted to.

[shocked pikachu]

Spoiler: Mandalorian

Show

Mando has significant plotting problems, to be honest. They introduce that tracking fob early on, and then have to completely forget about it because it's story breaking once it moves beyond the early episodes, because it means Baby Yodaling should've been easy for Gideon to find in the finale.

That's a very basic failure.

Spoiler

Show

I don't think it has a lot of plotting problems, but I wholly agree on the tracking fobs. They shouldn't have had them to start with; they're bounty hunters, not the main characters in Mandalorian: The Game playing on Easy mode.