The Wait for the Next Star Wars Movie Will Be Ridiculously Long
Mishandling of the Star Wars franchise by Disney is a topic for a good-sized book, not for a news article.
One of their less disputable errors was simple oversaturation, with a movie per year (counting spin-offs, of course, but production values for at least Rogue One were on par with the main sequel trilogy), which damped excitement for each individual movie even among devoted fans.
Compare and contrast with both the original and the prequel Star Wars trilogies, which were released at the rate of one movie per 3 years, not only placing much less constraints on the crews who filmed them, but also providing time for hype to rebuild. The fact that after such breakneck release pace, no new Star Wars movies had arrived after 2019, could have been seen as a simple admission of this error.
However, according to the current rumors, no new Star Wars movies are expected until at least 2025, six years after The Rise of Skywalker. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, which was set to appear in theatres at the end of 2023, is no longer on Disney 's official release schedule. It is not clear whether the project is cancelled or indefinitely delayed.
There are no news or indications of any other Star Wars movies already being in production. Nothing was announced at Disney D23 this September, despite earlier promises to the contrary. For now Star Wars appears to have relocated on the small screen, and for the foreseeable future it will remain there, with Andor being released currently, and several new series in production.
Reasons for this can only be speculated about. Oh, it is fairly obvious that the new Star Wars movies did not perform as bosses at Disney expected, but such a long pause in releases may be explained both by an intent to seriously re-examine the whole approach to the franchise, and by less noble causes.
There are rumors that Kathleen Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm, is trying to learn from past mistakes, which explicitly include rushing the sequel trilogy, and seeks to make the next movie as good as it can be, while also as different as possible from the current Star Wars series on Disney Plus.
It is said that the writing team brainstorming ideas for new movies is spearheaded by Damon Lindelof, the creator by Watchmen and The Leftovers, and might be closely consulting with George Lucas' understudy and fan favorite, Dave Filoni.
Good if true. But schedule slipping to this extent can also be the result of internal studio politics and good old disorganization.