Then my answer is that merchandise sales for Star Wars are in the toilet, they've basically lost the post-zoomer generation to the Marvel movies, and the theme park is making rookie sales. I'm not sure yet if Disney is actually in the black after buying Lucasfilm, since they spent $4 billion on the franchise (and about as much on the various theme parks), almost every movie is plagued by extensive reshoots and production budget overruns, and everything we've heard about episode IX so far (as well as Disney's future plans) reeks of desperation.
@BoomerDenton I'll make Absolutego's potential mistake and treat you as a non-troll.
Also remember that while TFA made 2 billion at the box office, TLJ made 1.3, both on budgets around 250 million. So you'd thing 2+1.3-0.25-0.25 = 2.8 Billion, but remember that is from net box office receipts. Hollywood goes above and beyond to keep actual profit numbers hidden by playing lots of game (which is a whole other rant) but you can assume that for any blockbluster, less than double the budget is a loss.
(Compare this to say Deadpool which pulled $800 million on a $60 million budget)
As
@Absolutego points out, the box office totals are nice, but as Lucas presciently figured out for starwars, that's small potatoes compared to merch. And those are in the toilet and declining. (If you have Netflix, there is a docuseries "The Toys that Made Us" and the first episode is about the Star Wars toys.) Part of this is Disney cannibalizing their own market - Marvel and SW audiences have large overlaps of Man children, and they have been saturating the market with both.
But the other part is that the Didney Waz movies just isn't getting or retaining adult fans, especially ones that buy merch; Marvel is selling, pre-buy out Star Wars is selling, but no one gives a fuck about Holdo and Rey.
Also remember that Disney bought Lucasfilm back in in 2012, 7 years ago, for 4 billion; lets just round up to 10 to give TRS a chance to drop, go to DVD, and accounting to complete. I don't want to sperg too deep into business math, but forgetting the cost to build Galaxy's Edge for a moment, if after 10 years Disney only makes back the 4 billion on the films, it will be a huge failure and Iger will be feeling pressure to step down.
You might be thinking "That doesn't make any sense, they made the purchase price back and still own the rights, so any dollar they make after that is a dollar in the black". But you'd be forgetting that investment math is different - if you just break even its been a failure, and was a bad risk. After 10 years, and given what Lucas was pulling from SW before the buyout, investors will be looking for at least double returns and probably more.
Disney isn't exactly in the poorhouse - 'not making as much money as hoped' is a far sight from 'losing money' - and even if all 7 billion people in the world suddenly decide "You know what? TLJ was a mess and I hated what they did to Luke. I'm done." and TRS never makes a single dollar, that's not going to put Disney under.
But what it IS going to do is make the investors pissed and demand a toll in blood and heads from the executives.
tl;dr Disney will survive TRS being a bust. Iger won't.
What if that was George's plan all along? What if he "sold" the rights and whispered in Kennedy's ear "kill the mouse"?
Not only would it explain everything but it also means Lucas is the real winner of the Game of Thrones. Bravo sir. Mousetrap of the year to lucasfilm.
I doubt Kennedy is any sort of Lucas-sent assassin, despite how horribly she's fucking up.
But if we're going the Machiavellian Lucas route, its more likely that Lucas probably recognized she was worthless, but made sure she'd stay at the helm after the hand over, and just decided to let nature take its course.
Lucas by all accounts wanted Didney Waz to be a success; why wouldn't he? Just sit back let other people do the work and deal with angry nerds, and just collect the fat checks. Disney's attempts to muscle him out of his percentage backfired.
