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Future Star Wars Movies Will Reportedly Have Lower Budgets

The original Star Wars movies featured some of the largest sets and most advanced special effects ever seen at that point in time. Despite all these revolutionary features, however, the film only cost about $10 million to make. When adjusted for inflation, that locks in the budget at around $45 million by today's standards.

The original Star Wars movies featured some of the largest sets and most advanced special effects ever seen at that point in time. Despite all these revolutionary features, however, the film only cost about $10 million to make. When adjusted for inflation, that locks in the budget at around $45 million by today’s standards.

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For comparison, the seventh Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, cost a whopping $300 million to make. As far as price tags go, the project is eclipsed only by Gore Verbinski’s sprawling Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, as well as Marvel’s monumental Infinity War and Endgame.

Moving forward, you’d expect the next Star Wars movie to cost even more. However, if industry insiders are to be believed, that won’t happen. In a recent report, the editor in chief of Making Star Wars explained his belief that future films set in a galaxy far, far away will be produced at much smaller budgets than their predecessors.

Citing the coronavirus pandemic as the chief evil-doer, Jason Ward expressed his opinion that Disney’s space outings are going to be “a lot cheaper moving forward.” Specifically, films set in George Lucas’ beloved sci-fi universe are going to be “smaller in scale” and “more intimate” as a response to the “economic turndowns” that the industry has had to endure.

Ever since The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in 2014, it’s been expanding the world of Star Wars with numerous prequels and sequels. As many of these films, including Solo and Rogue One, tell auxiliary stories that do not concern the main cast of the major trilogies, you would expect them to be both intimate and smaller in scale. However, thanks to elaborate set pieces, that’s anything but the case.