My theory on it, since I have a tendency to take the long odds when they're posted and be either completely right or completely wrong:
I see it doing bad. Really bad. At least as bad as Solo. TLJ has entered the public consciousness as something that makes the Prequels look good.
Outside of the usual suspects, I know of virtually no one who is
remotely interested in this movie and we've seen that from almost a dozen other franchises this year alone that treating your customers with giggling fucking contempt does not translate to sales. All of the biggest "events" involving this movie's development reek of PR moves, from the alleged "script leak" that was released on Ebay that
nobody outside Disney can substantiate and would have surely resulted in massive lawsuits and criminal prosecution if it was real, to events intended to raise public awareness while not actually releasing any information about the movie itself.
The fact that the Mandalorian got green-lit at all speaks volumes to Disney's confidence in the brand: Namely, that they have
none in Ku Klux Kennedy or JJ Abrams after the holocaust of disappointment that transpired by putting Johnson in charge of Episode VIII.
Iger's going to want to save his own ass and will happily throw his cronies into the line of fire to save himself. While the woke Twitterati start to form circular firing squads over what they know is coming and start sperg-fighting the movie's cast and crew with just as much vigor as was allegedly thrown at Rose Tico, we all know the sad reality: That even if works come out that are legitimately good, they will never undo the shame or dishonor of TLJ itelf until a full continuity reset of the ST is done, and pride alone ensures they are
never going to do that, because it would mean admitting they were wrong.
I'm going to remove the politics from the issue and I'm going to cut right to the heart of the matter,
in a fashion not unlike my avatar at the moment. At the arrogant core of every problem they're having right now is a unifying trait: They didn't like the established fandom.
But why? The fandom should have been free money, right? Well, no. Because you see, the fandom has preconcieved notions of what the series should and should not be, owing to that pesky 40 years of extrablished real-time history and lore. Every single plot point that didn't make sense, every single aspect of the story that looked like it could have deeper lore, they picked apart - not out of malice, but because they cared. Quickly, it becomes apparent that while the movie can wow people on an intitial watch, it can't stand up to scrutiny and it falls apart the more you re-watch it. Instead of acknowledging your work as a flawless masterpiece, they call it flawed and state that it has a long way to go to achieve true greatness.
If you're the sort of hypersensative egoboo many of these Hollywood assclowns are, the Fandom is a very real and present threat to your primacy. You can control the conversation on Twitter, you can pay shills on websites, you can dictate the terms of what your official releases are and who you promote them through, but the fanbase will never shut the fuck up and never back off, because they care about what you're potentially ruining. Their only crime is caring about what you're working on and maybe having a healthy dose of the 'tism.
But to you, they're your enemy. They're a convenient scapegoat for every problem you have, but so long as they persist, they will be a thorn in your side. They can sway attitudes. Worse, they won't blindly
consume product and then get excited for next products. They'll call you out on your bullshit. They'll point out when
you lie about your harassment narratives. They'll
lampshade the callous attitude you treated the franchise with. They will point out when you're pandering openly. They
need to go. Drive them out, like you have every other franchise. You own this fucking thing, not them. Replace them with a new fanbase, one more open to your ministrations.
....Except that new fanbase doesn't exist yet, and you're not entitled to the fanbase you want, nor more importantly,
the one you have. You actively antagonize them on Social Media, insult them openly, make it a line in the sand that anyone who besmirches you irrespective of legitimate reasoning is nothing but a troll or Russian bot or whatever. Anything that lets you think of them as less than human. And your asshole friends in the press will happily help you do it. Finally, you deliver the hammerblow and essentially make the entirety of your next movie devoted to fucking over the existing fandom. Any potentially interesting canard, you cut short. Everything with potential payoff, you ruin. Everything you think they want, you don't give them. You squander the last possible chance of getting the OT cast back together, and for no other purpose than to center almost an hour of the movie to relegating them - and much of Episode VII's cast - to lesser positions than fucking set dressing, and all out of contempt for the fact that they cared in the first place.
Well, congrats - you succeeded at driving them off. Except now, where once they were critical, they now fucking hate you and are committed to seeing your trilogy fucking burn for what you've done. You ultimately made your trilogy an unsalvagable mess
solely to fuck with the fans who refused to see things your way, and you have to bear the cost for what you have wrought. You played yourself, and nothing you do will change that fact. In less than a year, the very first Star Wars movie to fail to make a profit is released, and it turns out that due to your aggressive pandering, even China wants nothing to do with these movies. In the end, the nerds talked, and the new fanbase you chased the nerds off to acquire?
They don't care.