The infamous Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett was supposed to be given his own movie
with a definitive backstory, but plans at the studio suddenly changed.
Why?
Here's a look at the real reasons Disney won't give Boba Fett his own film.
It took three decades, but Han Solo finally got proper revenge for the whole carbonite
thing by getting Boba Fett's solo movie cancelled.
2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story wasn't exactly a critical failure, but it was definitely
a commercial one.
Forbes called the Alden Ehrenreich-led spin-off a "disaster from every point of view," and
they weren't kidding.
Domestic receipts for Solo totaled just shy of $214 million, which sounds like a lot until
you consider the fact that Disney reportedly spent an estimated $400 million to make and
promote the film.
That prompted Disney to look at the many reasons Solo failed.
Much of it had to do with the film's well publicized behind-the-scenes chaos, which
included Ehrenreich requiring acting lessons, as well as the firing of directors Phil Lord
and Christopher Miller halfway through the shoot.
But the biggest problem may have simply been franchise fatigue, as Solo was the fourth
Star Wars movie in as many years.
Disney CEO Bob Iger told The Hollywood Reporter they just plain overdid it.
"I think the mistake that I made, I take the blame, was a little too much, too fast.
You can expect some slowdown, but that doesn't mean we're not going to make films."
But none of those films will be Boba Fett.
These days, films studios have to think globally, as China has emerged as the largest film market
in the world behind the United States.
But while some Disney-owned franchises, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, are huge overseas,
Star Wars has proven to be a tough sell in China.
How tough?
Solo made barely $10 million in China over its opening weekend, while The Last Jedi was
reportedly pulled early from Cinese theaters for underperforming.
Rogue One star Donnie Yen told JoBlo,
"Chinese audiences didn't grow up with Star Wars culture so unfortunately it didn't work.
Marvel is a lot easier to understand.
Star Wars, there's a whole universe out there.
Marvel, from the costumes, to the music, to the idols, to the stars, it's much easier
to close the gap between the film itself and the audience."
As Solo proved, without China as a financial safety net, a Boba Fett movie is just too
risky to make.
When Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, a Boba Fett solo movie was one of the first
projects to be announced, with up-and-comer Josh Trank attached to direct.
It was also one of the first projects to be scrapped, after Trank drove Fox's Fantastic
Four franchise into the ground in 2015 with one of the biggest box office bombs of the
decade.
But Disney didn't abandon the idea of a Boba Fett film, as in early 2018, it was widely
reported that Logan director James Mangold had been tapped to helm a revived Boba Fett
solo project.
But after Solo faceplanted, Mangold distanced himself, calling all the Boba Fett rumors
"so much gossip."
After being burned twice, it's no wonder Disney decided not to start development for a third
time.
The woman in charge of steering the Star Wars universe for Disney is Kathleen Kennedy.
A longtime friend and collaborator of George Lucas, Kennedy signed a three-year contract
extension in September, 2018 to stay as the president of Lucasfilm.
And one of her first moves was to verify that in the near term, Disney's focus is entirely
on completing Episode Nine.
In October, 2018, film journalist Eric Weber tweeted,
"Kathleen Kennedy just confirmed to me Boba Fett movie is 100 percent dead."
Much of the mystique of Boba Fett comes from the combination of his iconically cool look
and his mysterious backstory.
Now that his story has been extensively told in the prequel trilogy, though, much of that
mystique has faded, which may explain why Disney is turning their attention to a different
Boba Fett related project: The Mandalorian.
Spearheaded by Iron Man director Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian is a Star Wars TV series for
Disney's upcoming streaming service.
It focuses on a mysterious new figure wearing the iconic Mandalorian armor made famous by
Boba Fett, allowing Disney to keep the cool visuals while restoring some of the intrigue
the prequels stripped away.
Favreau teased the show on Instagram, saying,
"After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe.
The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First
Order.
We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from
the authority of the New Republic."
With The Mandalorian taking Boba Fett's place, it looks like fans may have seen the last
of the galaxy's most notorious bounty hunter, for now, at least.