The story of Star Wars’s success is a story of how a spacey fairytale, created by a guy who just wanted to make his kind of movie his way, captured the imagination of the world. But George Lucas’s most famous creation is also a success story about money.
In the years since Lucas sold his billion-dollar ideas to Disney, one of the biggest stories has been about whether or not Disney has done right by their investment. Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in October 2012, changing the movie landscape for the 21st century in a big way. In the years following, Disney has certainly made plenty of dough, but they’ve also lost money, too. And while you’ve probably heard that the 2018 film Solo was a financial strain for Disney and that The Acolyte cost $28 million per episode, do you know which modern Star Wars project cost the most money?
According to a new report from Forbes, Disney has poured $645 million into the Disney+ series Star Wars: Andor, which will release its second season on April 22, 2025. As Forbes points out, this is “The highest-ever annual spending on a Star Wars production disclosed in Disney's public filings.” For comparison, this cost easily eclipses Disney’s spending on The Last Jedi (2017) and The Force Awakens (2015), which Forbes puts at e $280.7 million and $243.8 million, respectively.
Now, in fairness, if we take into account that both seasons of Andor will end up encompassing 24 episodes, that’s a lot more minutes of Star Wars than two feature films Because every three episodes of Andor constitutes one aspect of the story arc, you could view Season 1 as four movies back-to-back. The overall runtime of Andor Season 1 is 582 minutes, which is about 9 and a half hours. Considering the average Star Wars movie is 2 hours, at the very least, you could view Andor Season 1 as 5 movies. And then, when Season 2 comes out, you can double that.
Related: 'Andor' Season 2: Release Date, Cast and Surprising 'Star Wars' Time-Jumps
Another way to look at this is that Disney has spent $645 million on the equivalent of 10 movies. While Andor is one of the most critically acclaimed of the new Star Wars shows, it’s not necessarily the most watched. Overwhelmingly, relative to its budget, Andor’s success is mostly gauged in the critical reception, rather than, say, a huge viewership. To put it another way, The Mandalorian is much more popular, generally, and Disney spent less money on it.
Still, in 2022, Andor grew viewership over time, likely because word-of-mouth on the series was overwhelmingly positive. And, with Season 2 set to take us right up to the start of Rogue One and A New Hope, it’s possible that it will become one of the biggest Star Wars events ever. Disney may have spent a lot of money on a spin-off show about a moody space spy, but there’s every reason to believe that next year, that gamble will pay off.
