Disney reportedly spending 15 million dollars an episode. https://uproxx.com/hitfix/the-mandalorian-cost-15-million-episode/
That's "This is out new flagship show for our digital channel" levels of money. This is Star Trek: Voyager is to UPN levels of money. (cause it wasn't long after Star Trek left UPN that UPN ceased to be)
Part of me wonders if the somewhat disappointing box office from the non-saga movies convinced Disney to invest more heavily in the episodic television side of things. I mean that's a lot of money, even for a prestige streaming show.
I doubt it. This is clearly a big budget show that is being done with the intention of making Disney+ "must-see tv". Heck, if they were really disappointed with Rogue One's performance, I doubt a Cassian Andor show would be the second live action SW show we're getting. I don't think these tv shows' budgets have anything to do with the movies' performances. Now you could argue that the movie numbers might encourage them to make less standalone movies and more tv shows instead, like say "let's make an Obi-Wan tv show instead of a movie", and I'd totally believe that.
A Qi'ra and Maul TV show? Yes please! I mean an underworld crime drama is a perfect fit for a live action Star Wars series, indeed that's exactly what Lucas was planning before he decided the tech just wasn't there yet (it probably is by now.) Bit of a pipe dream, but I'd like to see them do something akin to the Marvel Netflix shows (sans the zombie ninja crossover.) That is a stable of mostly unrelated shows set in the same universe. They don't even need to be that connected since the likes of Kenobi is going to be insular by necessity and The Mandalorian takes place in a different decade from the other. That said, you could probably pull off some connective tissue, like a certain character, or maybe even a plot element or McGuffin shows up in all of them. For the sake or argument there could be some relic that Kenobi finds, or looses on Tatooine, that years later winds up in Crimson Dawn's hands in some deal, and later still is related to some bounty on The Mandalorian. Even if it's totally incidental, it'd be a fun little bit of business.
I would love to see a Qi'ra/Maul show that followed up on Solo. I wonder if Maul were to be a regular or recurring character if they stick to Ray Park as his body with Sam Witwer as his voice, or if they would just pick one actor to do both? Wow that's crazy, but apparently not unheard of, according to the article HBO spent around the same amount on Game of Thrones' last season. How much does CBS spend on an episode of Star Trek: Discovery?
According to Wikipedia, an episode of Discovery runs between 8 and 8 and 1/2 million dollars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Discovery
Wow, I didn't expect there to be that big of a difference between the two. But then again, Disney probably does have a lot more money to spend than CBS at this point.
Disney is willing to spend more money as well. CBS is notoriously conservative with their finances. Disney is notoriously willing to go overboard.
Remember when one of the reasons "Seaquest DSV" was canned was because of how expensive it was to produce? Online info': $1.3 million an episode. So ... can we have "Seaquest: The Next Generation" now? Since $1.3 is apparently trifling money and CGI is faster and cheaper to make.