At this point, I think Star Wars will never again be on television outside of animation shows like Clone Wars. You know how the saying goes... Why pay to see a movie when you can watch the show at home for free?
I don't think the evidence bears that out. Six of the Star Trek movies came out during a period when there were Star Trek television shows on the air, and several of those movies were quite successful. The first X-Files movie came out during the show's run and did reasonably well. Going back a ways, the 1966 Batman movie, released between the first two seasons of the associated show, did moderately well in theaters. Not to mention that presumably a Star Wars TV series would focus on different characters and storylines than the movies, so they wouldn't be equivalent. On another subject, given how many SW-related threads there suddenly are now and how many there will be over the years to come, I wonder how long it'll be before the TrekBBS reestablishes a separate Star Wars subforum within Science Fiction & Fantasy.
Yeah, franchises build uo excitement and awareness by spanning across in different media, so it would make perfect sense for there to be Star Wars in both movies and TV (and books and games). But it's hitting the same niche audience/big budget prolem Star Trek on TV does. Animation is cheaper and makes more sense for space opera. And it may be strange to call Star Wars a niche audience but a weekly series wouldn't have the same universal appeal as summer blockbusters every few years. We may as well get that subforum going now because we have the first inside-source rumor to keep the fans riled up:
You know... it's too bad that Paromount or CBS does not have a project , you know some type of "Space Opera", of sci fir franchance they have been backing an kept in the public eye that would increase in value over time, becom an investment and grow it over time to be bigger and a name brand?????? Oh wait, what's this, 1970 CHIPS??? or Star Trek..... maybe they have forgot about this!!!
Legally, it can't happen. Disney already owns ABC. They cannot also own CBS. They would have to sell it first, and they've shown no interest in doing so.
Does anyone else have an image of Mickey shooting Force lightning while shouting, "POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!" running around in their head? Doesn't quite work with Mickey...
Crazy thought I had this morning: Kingdom Hearts with Disney and Lucasfilm and Square characters. Seems totally possible now. o_O