Walt Disney has announced a new deal to make three more Star Wars movies. The production of a new Star Wars trilogy was agreed with director Rian Johnson, who also directed the latest Star Wars movie “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”. So let’s hope the last Jedi survives, or the new trilogy may be difficult to make.
New Star Wars Trilogy and Movie Streaming Service
This latest Star Wars trilogy comes at the right time for Disney. The company has announced a 4% drop in annual profits for the year to September. This was the first profit drop for Disney since 2009. It has been claimed to be due to competition from online streaming movie makers. Annual movie income dropped 21% over the year.
However, at $8.98 billion (£6.8 billion) profit the company is hardly at rock bottom! Nevertheless, it is a trend that Disney would likely desperately want to halt, or even reverse. In fact, in an attempt to compete with the streaming services, Walt Disney is working on the creation of a live-action Star Wars movie to launch a new online streaming service.
ESPN+ App to be Launched Next Year
While Disney shares fell after its results for the year were released, they came back up to 1% higher once the new Star Wars trilogy was announced. If there was anything that could give Disney a boost, it was a new series of three more Star Wars films. ESPN might also help.
Disney intends to launch an ESPN+ app early next year, and a streaming service should be available sometime in 2019. These new services are an indication of how keen Disney is to become more involved in such ‘direct-to-consumer’ services.
Annual Disney Profit and Movie Income Down
Online video has become a significant threat to Disney’s traditional products, and the company recognizes that the time has come to expand away from cable TV. Disney’s cable subscriptions are dropping one reason for a 3% drop in its July to September quarterly income. There have been reports recently of a Disney acquisition of certain parts of 21st Century Fox, although the company is not commenting on that for now.
