‘Star Wars’ is Plotting “At Least” Three Spinoff Films

Ever since George Lucas sold 'Star Wars' to Disney a year and a half ago, there's been word of sequels and spinoffs in the works. But the production of 'Star Wars: Episode 7' took longer to launch than expected, and so the effort to create those standalone films was put on the back burner. Now that 'Episode 7' is days away from shooting, Disney is beating the drum again, and have announced they'll be at least three new spinoffs coming before 2024.

What this news means is that now that 'Episode 7' is finally under way, they have a better sense of where the universe is going, and likely they wanted to get the new trilogy up and running before they started announcing the standalone films. But, maybe more importantly, 'Star Wars' was a four billion dollar purchase for Disney, one that was done in October 2012, and one that won't start paying theatrical dividends until December 2015. So telling the stockholders you have elaborate plans is smart.