By In various quarterly earnings calls over the past year or so, Disney CEO Bob Iger made it clear they had been pushing too hard and too fast with their Marvel and “Star Wars” divisions in terms of getting content up on the Disney+ service.
As a result, quality had suffered in the race to produce quantity and so the plan has been to slow down the output of the studios – from four shows and four films a year to two series (not including animation) and two or three films per year.
This has been most visible with Marvel Studios’ TV series where 2021 saw four live-action series premiering, that number slipping to three each in 2022 and 2023, and now two (“Echo,” “Agatha All Along”) in 2024.
Marvel is expected to continue that for a while with “Daredevil: Born Again” S1 and “Ironheart” in 2025; “Daredevil: Born Again” S2, “Wonder Man” and possibly “Vision Quest” in 2026.
“Star Wars” on the surface has been largely unaffected by the slowdown – but that’s about to change. DanielRPK is reporting that Lucasfilm is planning to reduce “Star Wars” Disney+ output to just one live-action “Star Wars” series per year (animated series releases are unaffected by this).
That’s a definite decline following three shows in 2022 (Boba Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Andor S1), two shows in 2023 (Mando S3, Ahsoka S1) and two shows in 2024 (Acolyte, Skeleton Crew).
The slowdown would appear to begin with next year’s second and final season of “Andor” being the sole release of 2025 (though “Skeleton Crew” will have a few episodes run into January).
It also means a second season of “Ahsoka” likely won’t arrive until 2026, this was seemingly confirmed the other day by actress Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who plays Sabine Wren.
Appearing at Dragon Con last weekend (via Mandoverse Updates), she indicated filming on the second season is aiming to begin by Summer 2025, and not late 2024 as had previously been indicated.
The first season began shooting around 15 months before it went to air. Even without pandemic-related slowdowns, it means the second season is unlikely to make it to air until well into 2026.
“The Mandalorian” is bypassing a fourth season in favor of a currently shooting film which opens May 2026. This schedule suggests the second season of “Ahsoka” will likely release after the movie as it simply won’t be ready in time to go to air before May 2026.
Other “Star Wars” series in development, such as “Lando,” have seemingly been scrapped so it’s not clear what series might be the “Star Wars” show for 2027.
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