Loved Andor. Unlikely Gilroy would do more Star Wars and if he did, he probably wouldn’t be given another $650M for a side character. Season 2 was $290 and that was after their budget was capped by Iger, they tried to spend more.
On one hand I want to say "fuck it, let them have whatever the fuck they want", given they should've known how well-received the show is by critics and viewers alike and how they should consider it basically the savior of the Star Wars brand. On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day.
I think Rogue One is the best Star Wars ever and Andor is in the same vein. But.
The savior of the Star Wars brand is always going to be the latest lightsaber-fest for 10-year-olds. That creates customer loyalty that will survive forever. Those kids then grow up and get to bitch about the new lightsaber-fest, and to fawn over the artsy drama.
Did customer loyalty survive the latest round of terrible movies and TV shows? I’ve long since written off anything Star Wars, except maybe the Mandelorian (didn’t watch season 2 though) and Andor.
Well, you did watch Andor, so you'll probably give a spin to the next decently-reviewed thing aimed at your demographic. Most of SW production is for children and teenagers.
Andor S2 was around $350M and most likely paid for itself and some. [1]
> On the other hand, I guess it's still a business, at the end of the day.
You're right, in the sense that Andor was an exception regarding every other SW show on Disney+ for the past 4 years. All had high production costs and seems like Andor is the only one which recouped itself. Acolyte was a spectacular viewship failure.
So the business logic would be to cap costs, most likely in half for now on. I don't have high expectations of Disney learning the right lessons from Andor & Tony.
How exactly does a streaming show pay? Is it measured in new subscriptions when viewers hear the buzz and sign up to the service due to that show? Otherwise, the users stream it, or don't, they pay the same either way.
The inverse question too: why do streaming platforms cancel popular shows? Watcher count doesn't seem to be the metric I think it is.
Source: https://screenrant.com/andor-budget-confirmed/