Well, well, well...
I'm trying to think of all the instances where I was told that Disney Star Wars was pumping out the hits and people were so in love with Rey, Finn, "The Acolyte," and every other fresh hell Kathleen "the force is female" Kennedy was heaping upon us. The issue is that they've been doing this for so long that I've forgotten more than I remember.
Going over my coverage alone, you can see the path of destruction Kathleen left behind her during her time as the President of Lucasfilm, and that's not even counting my colleague Brad Slager's, or the assortment of other writers here that've covered the downfall of the brand.
However, Star Wars sadly became something not worth writing about. My last article about it was just over a year ago, on April 28, 2025. I only wrote about it because something magical happened. Disney re-released "Revenge of the Sith," the third movie in the prequel trilogy, for its 20th anniversary. What's funny is that the prequel trilogy is often both loved and hated by Star Wars fans, but after Disney released its sequel trilogy, the prequel suddenly found itself being hoisted into the air as far more liked than not.
When Disney re-released the film in theaters, people swarmed in to relive the magic, and propelled its total box office income into the stratosphere. Not only that, it beat out other anniversary releases by miles:
Overall, this brings its all-time domestic box office to $405.4 million, according to The Numbers.
Here are some more interesting facts that might surprise you about the film's popularity. According to box office hawk Luiz Fernando, Revenge beat Titanic's 15th anniversary $17.3 million re-release in 2012 and The Lion King's 2011 $30.2 million re-release. It also demolished Avatar's $10.5 million re-opening as the biggest post-COVID.
It proved one crucial thing about Star Wars, and it's that while Disney has used and abused it, the fans are still there. They're just not showing up for whatever modern, woke nonsense Kennedy is pushing out.
Now, on this glorious May the 4th (aka "Star Wars Day"), some more information to back this up has been released in the form of Nielsen ratings.
According to Variety, Nielsen shows that people are still really, really into Star Wars, and streamed a total of 33 billion minutes (or 550 million hours) watching Star Wars on Disney+.
But here's where it gets interesting, and I'll let Variety do the talking here:
The “Star Wars” films accounted for the biggest share of the viewing at 44.2%. The live-action shows made up 38.9%, while “Star Wars” animated projects accounted for 16.8%. Documentaries about the franchise accounted for just 0.2% of all viewing. “A New Hope” was the most viewed title, followed by “The Phantom Menace” and then “Rogue One.”
“Andor” was the most-viewed live-action series with 7.4 billion minutes, boosted by the fact the show released its highly-anticipated second season between April and May 2025. It made the Nielsen Top 10 Streaming Originals chart for six weeks straight in that time. After “Andor,” “Skeleton Crew” and “The Mandalorian” were the most-viewed shows.
Now, what's interesting about this is that the things that people were watching had, for the most part, no wokeness in them. The first two seasons of "The Mandalorian," for instance, were some of, if not the best, Star Wars ever on television, until later seasons devolved into feminist nonsense. "Andor" is a spy thriller set in the Star Wars universe that actually takes the universe seriously and has attracted, namely, Gen X and Millennial viewers by the millions.
In terms of movies, people are watching the old stuff, and the prequels, with the only recent one being "Rogue One," which I thought was interesting but not surprising. It's the Magnificent 7 in the Star Wars universe and was actually a pretty great film. One of the few things Kennedy didn't ruin.
What isn't being mentioned, however, is everything else Kennedy had a hand in:
Nielsen also broke down data for May the 4th, 2025, during which fans viewed 637 million minutes (or 10.6 million hours) of “Star Wars” content altogether. “Andor” was the most-viewed “Star Wars” title that day, again not surprising given that it was releasing new episodes at the time. It was followed by “A New Hope,” “Phantom Menace,” “Empire Strikes Back,” and “Revenge of the Sith.”
No sequel trilogy. No Acolyte. No Asoka. No Obi-Wan.
Nielsen data shows people are still watching Star Wars, but the stuff that had socio-political messaging or influence is nowhere to be seen in the top 10.
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) May 4, 2026
>No sequel trilogy
>No Acolyte
>No Obi-Wan
>No Asoka
If it reeked of "The Force Is Female," it wasn't watched. pic.twitter.com/mCRVExXk6w
Star Wars is a great story. It wasn't until Kennedy got hold of it that it started being a bad one.
With her finally leaving, we can only hope we can return to its former glory, though it's got some serious mountains to climb to do that.
If it's made well, we'll come watch it. We're clearly still thirsty for it.
