For a franchise that spent seven years building up its live-action return to theaters, Star Wars just found its steadiest ground somewhere else entirely. On Thursday, as ticket sales confirmed just how badly "The Mandalorian and Grogu" had cratered, Lucasfilm and Japanese animation studio Production I.G. debuted the first episode of "Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi" to a packed room at Anime Expo in Los Angeles.
The timing was a collision of mediums. "The Mandalorian and Grogu" opened Memorial Day weekend to the softest debut of any Disney-era Star Wars film, then fell a punishing 70% in its second weekend, dropping to third place behind two microbudget films from first-time YouTube directors. Industry estimates now put the film's break-even point as high as $600 million worldwide, a number it's unlikely to reach. It's the kind of stumble that would have been unthinkable for the franchise a decade ago, when Star Wars movies routinely dominated their release windows for months.
"The Ninth Jedi" doesn't have that baggage. The character at its center, a lightsaber-smith's daughter named Kara, first appeared in a 2021 "Visions" short directed by Kenji Kamiyama, the filmmaker behind "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex." That original 22-minute episode became one of the most acclaimed entries in the anthology series, and a follow-up short expanded her story again last October. Thursday's premiere marked her jump into a full ongoing series, screened in Japanese with English subtitles for a crowd that included Kamiyama, director Shunsuke Tada, and Lucasfilm executives Jacqui Lopez and Josh Rimes. Unlike the anthology's usual format of one-off stories, this version follows Kara continuously as she searches for her missing father and works to rebuild a shattered Jedi Order.
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It's a smaller, stranger corner of the galaxy than the one "Mandalorian and Grogu" occupies, set generations after "The Rise of Skywalker" in a timeline that isn't tied to established canon. That freedom is what's let "Visions" build a devoted following since 2021, one that doesn't need $165 million budgets or opening-weekend box office to justify its existence.
None of this fixes what happened at movie theaters this spring. But it does suggest Lucasfilm isn't putting all its faith in one format. "The Ninth Jedi" arrives on Disney+ later this summer, arguably needing far less to feel like a win than the movie that shares its release year.
But live action isn't done. The animated series debuts on Disney+ just ahead of "Ahsoka" Season 2, another live-action bet the studio is counting on to keep momentum going after a rocky year, and Lucasfilm has signaled interest in expanding the "Visions Presents" format if this first outing connects with audiences.
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