After releasing a new Star Wars film every year beginning in 2015, Disney and Lucasfilm are taking a break in 2020 to figure out what comes next. While it's been seven years and a couple months since the Mouse House gained ownership of Star Wars in October 2012, it arguably feels like it's been a lot longer. That's probably because of the overwhelming amount of content Disney and Lucasfilm have churned out from a galaxy far, far away since then, including five live-action movies, a pair of animated TV shows, multiple video games, and a live-action TV series. And that's barely even touching on the plethora of Star Wars novels and comic books published over the same amount of time.
The Disney-era Star Wars movies have all been massive box office hits so far (save for Solo: A Star Wars Story), with The Mandalorian TV show proving to be an equally popular draw on the Disney+ streaming service. Yet, at the same time, Star Wars fatigue is in real danger of settling in, especially in the wake of the mixed response and lower-than-hoped (but still huge) turnout for December's conclusion to both the sequel trilogy and Skywalker saga, The Rise of Skywalker. Even Disney CEO Bob Iger has said the company released too much, too quickly, and there will be a slowdown of Star Wars films beginning this year.
This isn't a surprise knee-jerk reaction to The Rise of Skywalker's reception either; Disney and Lucasfilm have been planning to put the Star Wars movie franchise on hiatus for a while now. They currently have three new films scheduled for 2022-2026, but have yet to announce who's writing and/or directing them (much less, what they will be about). It's only appropriate from a storytelling perspective, though, as releasing another Star Wars movie in 2020 (even a spinoff) would risk undermining the impact of The Rise of Skywalker's ending to the Skywalker story. It also wouldn't be practical, as anyone who's kept up with the franchise's recent struggles behind the scenes can concur.
As has been well-documented, Disney and Lucasfilm have encountered more than their fair share of issues making their Star Wars movies - from directors changing mid-production or essentially being replaced during post-production, to several filmmakers dropping out in pre-production, sometimes even before there's a finished script to work with. A good deal of that can be chalked up to the rapid-fire pace at which the studios have released these films, leaving little room for creative disagreements to be worked out or problems to be fixed without taking drastic action. This hasn't escaped their attention, either, which is why they've refrained from talking about the future of Star Wars (in concrete terms) until they've had time to regroup and plan where to take things next. And while it's been reported an announcement about the 2022 Star Wars movie could be arriving as soon as this month, even that may only concern the film's director and little else.
Add it all together and it's easy to see why the Mouse House and Lucasfilm decided to hold off on knocking out another Star Wars movie right after The Rise of Skywalker (as was originally the plan, back when they announced the sequel trilogy). Truth be told, the larger fanbase could probably use a break from the films too, coming after back-to-back divisive reactions to the last two mainline installments (especially 2017's The Last Jedi). Besides, with The Mandalorian season 2 arriving this fall and even more live-action series being actively developed for Disney+, it's not as though people are going to be hurting for Star Wars-related content while Disney and Lucasfilm work out their new approach.