Pfft...LFL pulled a billion in licensing from the prequels before the first one was released - and that was just licensing, not the films themselves, or royalties, and whatever else they get off merchandise, or home video, etc.
There's no question
Star Wars makes a ton of money -- otherwise, Disney wouldn't have bought it. However, don't mistake revenue for profit. Not the same thing. That aside, I fully expect Disney to announce something within the next six to eight months related to
Star Wars going into the parks. But Disney doesn't just forge ahead wildly. They have a reputation with regard to theme parks, and they'll want to make sure they're getting a good mix of attractions, food, and so on. Those things have to be designed and re-designed, partly because Imagineers start with no limits and then have to take costs into consideration. They will also probably want to include tie-ins to the new film(s). And they'll want to play things close to the vest until they at least think they know what they're going to do. They do have a lot of money, but they spend a lot of money as well. In the last eight years, they've spent just over
$16 billion to acquire Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. They spend a lot on keeping their theme parks and resorts running, movies being made, and so forth and so on. A new
Star Wars park the size of Disney's Hollywood Studios park, which I believe is the smallest Disney park in the US, would cost at least $1 billion to design and build (possibly double that) and would take years to be profitable.
Despite how we here see it, it is true that not everyone is interested in
Star Wars. And Disney also has some recent experience that would make them proceed with caution with regard to
Star Wars in their parks. They spent a lot of money to update and upgrade Star Tours a couple of years ago. It was a massive change that made the ride much better and gave it a ton of re-rideability, with the random sequences making it unlikely most guests would experience the same thing twice. But in Walt Disney World, they saw almost
none of the expected attendance bump when it opened.
Toss in the money Disney makes from all their other studios and parks and what not, they have the money to do whatever they want. It's just the decision on whether to do it.
The decision is
when, not whether. No question in my mind that it will happen. But enough "money to do whatever they want"? Nope. They have shareholders.
Qapla'
SSB