Again, it’s not so much that SW has failed as Marvel has succeeded in an insane way. 23 films in 11 years, and very quickly snatching up the highest grossing franchise title (which it will hold perhaps forever - or at least our lifetimes). The reason for this incredible success is obvious: The Avengers. Here’s really a mega franchise that collects multiple sub franchises and enriched them all. That series has grown exponentially more popular with each crossover because the concept of a crossover is unprecedented, and the desire to see a live action superhero team up film was a strong one for the preexisting Marvel fan base and for others alike - and it was a desire that had been pent up for decades before it ever happened. It’d be unreasonable to expect SW to match Marvel’s success, and perhaps that was actually the problem behind a failure like Solo, where Disney was trying to more closely follow their winning Marvel formula - not every series can be Marvel, and truthfully, as of yet it’s unclear if any series can ever be.
For me, again it goes back to “who cares.” I’ll always prefer Star Wars, I did when I was a kid and it wasn’t the most popular in school, I did when TFA came out and was the biggest movie ever (sort of), and I still do even though Marvel has obviously eclipsed it and everything else. For me, I never felt like I needed my love of Star Wars validated. So, personally, I don’t care if Marvel is more successful. Maybe if they can some day make a movie as good as TFA or TLJ (let alone SW or ESB) I’ll care more. But until then, I’ll love Marvel, but I’ll just love Star Wars a little more, and how much money either makes couldn’t matter to me less.
I think that Star Wars has gone stale. I look at Star Wars these days, and it all has a sameness to it that makes the universe feel small, and inconsequential. I mean forty years have passed, and we’re still fighting stormtroopers, and have former star Jedi pupils running amok. We’re still trying to defeat space Nazis. We get the same visuals with minor updates. In the end they’re all just pale reflections of what once was fresh and original. As fans we can get excited, or angry about cranky Luke, but from a general audience perspective isn’t cranky Luke just Obi-Wan/Yoda with a twist? Isn’t Kylo Ren just Darth Vader Light? Isn’t Rey just a female Luke. As fans we may get excited about a Sith Trooper, but isn’t the general audience going to look at them, and go sarcastically: “O wow, a red stormtrooper, how exciting…”? Did we really need origin stories for classic characters, showing us things we already knew, or didn’t care to know? Isn’t the real issue here, that Star Wars is still stuck in the past, while the MCU has offered something new (in cinema terms), fresh, and exciting? What are we really expecting from TROS? The rebels beat the Empire again. Darth Vader gets redeemed again. Where are the endless possibilities? Star Wars has failed from a certain point of view. It has failed to stay fresh. Star Wars has become a franchise for old people trying to rekindle their youth.
I seriously hope come December JJ offers up something truly unique and exciting both narratively and visually.
Now I’m going to sound hypocritical, but I am curious how Marvel toy sales are doing, mainly because part of me is curious if kids even play with toys at all these days (if I knew any kids I’d ask).
While exact numbers are hard to find, Avengers toys are the main force behind Hasbro’s success right now:
https://www.businessinsider.nl/hasbro-toy-sales-crush-estimates-boosted-by-avengers-endgame-2019-7/
Revenue expectation for Marvel toys for 2018 were approx. $500 M, which is in line with the toy revenue prediction model I showed based on google trend data. So, yes kids still play with toys, just not as much with Star Wars toys. Also the relationship I established between general interest in Star Wars and toy sales works for data from 2005 to 2019, and so there’s no real evidence that lower toy sales for Star Wars are related to a decreased interest in toys in general. Interest in the various properties seem to drive toy sales with a successful property generates interest, boosting toy sales in general, like Endgame in 2019, while less successful properties result in less interest and disappointing toy sales.