Is Star Wars fatigue" - the idea that the steady stream of shows has simply burnt the franchise out.

It's pretty hard to get a sense of what's really going on behind the scenes at Disney. Like all streaming companies, the House of Mouse guards its stats jealously. Curious to learn more, especially in the wake of chatter about Star Wars: Skeleton Crew's viewership, we reached out to Luminate - one of the best-known third-party analytics companies in the U.S. We spoke to Jimmy Doyle, Director and Film & TV analyst at Luminate, and a die-hard Star Wars fan to find out what the stats suggest.

2024 Has Definitely Been A Rough Year For Star Wars

As good as Star Wars animation may be, it's sadly a fact that the live-action shows are the real money-makers for Disney. "When you look at the animated titles, they're gonna be a lot lower in of viewership than live action," Doyle explains. "That's pretty typical. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but that's just they're not as valuable when we talk about Disney / Lucasfilm. They're valuable in keeping fans engaged, things like that, but the live action is what's most important to them when we look at that gross level viewership."

Looking at live-action, 2024 has "definitely been a down year for them," Doyle confirms. "The Acolyte... had lower viewership than most of the other Star Wars shows when it premiered, and then it didn't gain viewership," he continued. "It actually lost a little bit of viewership during its run. So with that loss of viewership, in addition to the critical reception to the show, those two things kind of lead you to that cancelation." As for Skeleton Crew, it's currently difficult to say; although the show opened 44% lower than The Acolyte, it was less expensive, and it's difficult to predict how the show will perform over the Christmas period.

Note: Luminate's data covers U.S. viewership only, and does not indicate performance in international territories.

The Acolyte's Cancelation Makes Perfect Sense

"The Acolyte was really the first one that I think you would say is legitimately poor performance comparative to the other Star Wars shows," Doyle notes. He points out that viewership was 47% lower than Ahsoka in the first 26 weeks of release - and that's a particularly troubling stat, because Ahsoka sits in the middle of the pack and is pretty solid in of viewership. "Now that said, this is still one of the biggest shows on Disney+ this year," he continues. "It's just lower than where that level has been set for the Star Wars titles." The Acolyte's core problem was cost, because the show was simply too expensive for that viewership.

This Doesn't (Necessarily) Mean Star Wars Fatigue Is A Real Thing

The problem, though, is that it's pretty hard to say whether all this translates to Star Wars fatigue. The shows are all too different; as Doyle points out, you can't imagine a five-year-old settling down to watch Andor. Most of these shows had something solid as a hook, something viewers already related to; The Mandalorian lacked pre-existing characters, but "there's a guy who looks like Boba Fett, and there's a Baby Yoda; these are things that people are familiar with. The Acolyte has Jedi, but it's very different to anything else in the franchise. And then with Skeleton Crew... there's these kids that we've never seen and new characters, new space, new whatever."

This is the side of Star Wars we don't often stop to think much about; established characters and concepts are tremendously valuable, meaning something fresh and new is likely to draw less attention than something with nostalgia buzz. Obi-Wan Kenobi was the high point of Luminate's data, which runs back as far as The Book of Boba Fett; "Obi-Wan Kenobi's [viewership] was really high, but that's because those first two episodes did massive viewership." The curious thing is, though, that Obi-Wan Kenobi didn't stay strong. "Obi-Wan had a 37% decrease in that first week, and then continued to decrease in following weeks."

Meanwhile, looking into the details, some shows simply perform too differently to be directly comparable. Take Andor; that's "lower in viewership," Doyle points out, "but really steady, people held with the show. Andor is one of the best holding Star Wars shows as we go later on, so people kept discovering the show well after its initial release." The Mandalorian season 3 may have had a poor critical reception, but there's no drop in viewership, and it's performing well in the Disney+ back catalog. "It's still something that people are going to and watching," Doyle confirms. None of this will be reflected in the usual discussion - and it's all relevant to Disney.

The Time Is Right For Star Wars To Return To The Movies

Looking forward, Doyle is optimistic about the future of Star Wars - especially in of the movie, The Mandalorian & Grogu. We often compare Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios, but he points out that they're doing the opposite this time. "With Marvel, they're actually starting to... loosen the deep connections," he observes. We're going from direct tie-ins to the return of the Marvel Television brand. In contrast, Star Wars is trying to tie the shows and movies together.

"Disney is in a place where I think they're still understanding how the TV side interacts with the film side as they're trying to do more organic interaction with them. And I think there's not quite enough data to know just how effective it can be."

It all makes sense to Doyle, who insists it's "time" for Star Wars to return to the big screen. "Star Wars is kind of built on these dark periods and then periods of light," he points out. "The question will be, will fans see it as a dark period when we've had, you know, seven TV shows in that time?" Still, the brand value of The Mandalorian is so much bigger than just Disney+ - he optimistically imagines a pitch insisting you don't need to do a rewatch, marketing this movie as a new thing.

"You never got a subscription to Disney+. Do you wanna finally see baby Yoda in a movie theater, in a thing? You bought all the merchandise even though you've never watched the show. Come see this movie."

Both Din Djarin and Grogu have been huge successes for Lucasfilm, so it makes perfect sense to Doyle that they're coming to the big screen. This should drive people "back and forth between the streamer and in theaters," something many other studios are trying to pull off right now as well. And it's just what Star Wars needs.