Is Disney Trying to Sell Star Wars?

I pick out winners and losers in my latest culture briefing paper

Legacy institutions don’t want to tell you about the decline of legacy institutions. Can you blame them?

But this is the most important story in culture right now, and it’s too big to hide. For the last hundred years, power got centralized in a few hands—in media, entertainment, and arts. Now they are losing ground, and small indie operators are rising.

That’s the main theme in my latest culture briefing below. But I cover other breaking stories too.

Let’s start with Hollywood, where they don’t need a Titanic reboot—because they are the Titanic reboot!

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Disney is allegedly trying to sell the Star Wars franchise—but nobody wants to buy it.

This is just a rumor (so far). But it sounds plausible.

Disney has been quietly looking to sell Star Wars for the past seven months—but reportedly, there have been no takers.

This comes from Chris Gore, who cites a “trusted individual” in the “world of finance” as his informant.

I like to be very careful about breaking news because I don’t want to turn into one of those gossip sites. But we hear things….I am told from a friend in the industry that Disney has been shopping Star Wars for sale. They have been shopping the brand, they have been putting feelers out for the last seven months…. It’s unclear whether they are selling Star Wars or Lucasfilm. Is it the whole thing? I don’t know.

This sounds like a shocking move. But is it really?

Disney has been struggling for years now—just look at the trending share price. Did it hit an iceberg?

I was once a shareholder, but I bailed in early 2022. I certainly have no regrets.

Disney share price trend (Source)

They clearly need to change direction at the House of the Mouse. Flooding the market with more franchise films is no solution—it’s the problem. The studio has such a bad track record with franchises now, that the media calls them failures even before the movies come out.

So when The Hollywood Reporter did a teaser on the new Snow White film, the best they could say is “They Need to Get This Over With.”

Source

I don’t expect to see that blurb in the ad campaign.

When things get this bad, half-measures aren’t enough. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney unloaded a big brand or took some other bold move.

Just consider: If they keep doing more of the same, those franchises will be worth even less five years from now. It’s better to find a life boat now.

And it’s not just Disney….

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Will the movie business ever return to pre-pandemic levels?

There is no recovery in sight. Even the Barbie and Oppenheimer love coupling now looks like a forgotten one-night stand.

Not long, Hollywood routinely sold more than $10 billion in tickets per year. That’s now an impossible dream. Box office receipts are more likely to drop to $5 billion than get back to $10 billion.

Look at the chart below, and see for yourself.

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Meanwhile outsiders are thriving—and not just in filmmaking.

In this context, I note that a new Chinese animated film generated $2 billion in revenues. And it just got released on January 29.

But outsiders are also shaking up the culture closer to home: Substack announced last week that it grew 25% in just the last four months.

I anticipate a future when Substack is a full-service platform for all indie creatives.

Who could have guessed that the hottest trend in culture would be reading long form articles by indie authors? But it’s happening.