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Comment by rikacomet | Hacker News Reader

The case is against live-action for many reasons:

A. Disney just took things over from LA, so its a very risky decision to fun a live-action series because A. Star Wars came into prominence as a movie B. The New Content won't be the same (Yoda-Obi Wan are both ghosts now, Luke might be a old man now, and lot of the real life actors are either old or have moved on to other projects). At this point, they would certainly introduce a lot of new characters, A movie is the safe bet I think honestly.

B. The return on 120 minute content for a movie vs a live-action tv series are worlds apart. Movies make a lot of money for a lot less content.

C. Movies stars and Movie Production houses have a bigger mass appeal and reach than TV ones.

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Who said the TV series would have to take the place of the final 3 movies? The star wars universe is vast in both history and size, they could set a TV show at any of a hundred interesting times without tying directly into the movies at all.

true, but they already announced that the upcoming movies would be set after the story line of the movies. While they are doing that, on the second hand funding a live-action somewhere else in the star wars timeline might be to hush hush!

B. Movies at the Star Wars level (i.e., blockbusters) cost about 200x as much as a single one-hour episode yet are only about twice as long.

A TV show would also double as extended brand advertising. Every episode would renew interest in, and/or focus on, the Star Wars brand, so each episode would double both as an income-earning vehicle and as paid promotion.

C. You greatly overestimate the mass appeal of movie stars and movies. The income generated by movies is easier to track, but TV shows have far higher viewership and mass appeal. Consider: every episode of Fringe, a low-rated niche TV show, is watched by "only" 5-6 million viewers. In movie terms, that would equate to $50-60 million in box office at matinee prices (i.e., would place in the top 30 all-time weekend earnings). Over the course of a season, the viewership of Fringe would exceed the total box office viewership of Titantic and Gone With the Wind, the two most popular movies of all time (based on the number of moviegoers, not earnings).

Famously, the Stargate TV show and its various spinoffs averaged fewer than 3 million viewers an episode per broadcast per channel, but the franchise is one of the most profitable in entertainment history, having generated more than $1 billion in licensing-related revenues.

And A: I don't think it would be too difficult to get aged actors like Mark Hammond and Carrie Fisher to play older versions of their most successful characters (Harrison Ford might prove more difficult for various reasons).

Personally I could easily see a teen-focused series, revolving perhaps around the students in the re-established Jedi Academy, with Luke and Leia as tutors. If done right, it could have a nice combination of adventure, politics and morality lessons... The more I think of it the more I like the concept! :-)

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