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Welcome to Editor's Picks.
We've handpicked an article for you from the most recent edition of The Economist.
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Six years after the twin suns last set on Tatooine,
one of Hollywood's most valuable movie franchises is returning to cinemas.
Star Wars has not had a theatrical outing since The Rise of Skywalker,
which grossed $1.1 billion in 2019. With the release of The Mandalorian and Grogu on May 22nd,
Disney will discover whether the brand has survived its long absence from the big screen.
After acquiring Lucasfilm and the Star Wars brand from George Lucas for $4.1 billion in 2012,
Disney cranked out five new movies in the five years to 2019, grossing nearly $6 billion at the worldwide box office.
But then it abruptly put the cinema franchise in the deep freeze, like Darth Vader suspending Han Solo in Carbonite.
The long pause is partly the result of creative mistakes.
The Rise of Skywalker had a plot that both irritated purists, the evil Emperor Palpatine,
last seen plunging to his doom on board the Death Star in 1983,
made a miraculous recovery for a final battle and failed to tee up a sequel.
Follow-ups were mooted, but directors and writers found Disney overprotective of its priceless intellectual property.
Yet the lack of movies also reflected a deliberate strategic choice by Disney.
Star Wars may have been absent from theatres, but its production has gone into hyperspace on television.
Starting with The Mandalorian in 2019,