Disney's plan to revive the long-running Star Wars saga could be far more ambitious than first thought following reports that the studio is planning two to three new movies every year.
In the wake of Disney's $4.05bn purchase of all rights to Star Wars, filmgoers were expecting a new trilogy of films released over several years.
But according to a number of US sites, new Lucasfilm chief executive Kathleen Kennedy has a far more aggressive plan. She is quoted as telling the new edition of Entertainment Weekly, which is due to hit US news stands today, that Disney envisions "two or three films a year".
It has been reported elsewhere that Star Wars could be packaged in line with the studio's Marvel universe, which successfully delivered a series of comic book films focusing on individual superheroes before bringing them all together for the $1.5bn box office hit The Avengers earlier this year. If Kennedy's comment is confirmed, it would appear Star Wars is set for a similar structure.
Studios have learned that popular franchises can effectively be inured against weakly-received instalments provided that new movies continue to roll off the production line. Hollywood once planned to film a project based on JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings fantasy trilogy as two movies, while Steven Spielberg is said to have wanted to shoot several Harry Potter books as one feature. In the end, Potter emerged as eight movies from seven books, while the forthcoming Hobbit trilogy has somehow magicked three films from one short novel.
The final instalment in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, was split in two and fans have eagerly lapped up both instalments, despite regular critical derision for the series as a whole. Disney's proposals for Star Wars would appear to be a continuation of a mantra that says popular franchises should be mined for everything they are worth.
Disney last week confirmed the Oscar-winning writer of Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3, Michael Arndt, as the screenwriter for Star Wars: Episode VII, which is due in 2015. British director Matthew Vaughn was recently rumoured to be in talks to helm the first film in the new trilogy, while Steven Spielberg and Star Trek's JJ Abrams have ruled themselves out. The stars of the original trilogy, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and Harrison Ford (Han Solo) have all been tipped to return to the series.
This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk
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