Lucasfilm has got big plans for their flashy new publishing initiative Star Wars: The High Republic, a whole era’s worth of content that includes novels, comic books and more. It only just kicked off earlier this month, but titles will ramp up across 2021 and 2022. If you look at the analytics on Goggle Trends, however, it might not have made the strongest start, as The High Republic is getting just a fraction of the searches that are devoted to The Mandalorian.
Not only that, but more people are Googling actress Gina Carano, likely due to the controversy the star has been causing recently on social media, than The High Republic, too. As pointed out by Pirates & Princesses, there’s a huge gulf between the number of searches that the Disney Plus flagship series and Carano received in the last few months – with their figures unsurprisingly peaking recently – and those for THR. And despite the initiative officially beginning in January, there’s only been the slightest increase, as you can see for yourself in the graph below:
Obviously, these results aren’t that shocking, as The Mandalorian is literally one of the biggest TV shows in the world at present and Carano’s controversy is a frequent trending topic on social media. Meanwhile, The High Republic is just stretching its legs. The real test will be the next year when we’ll get to see if interest starts to balloon as more titles roll out. Again, though, Lucasfilm is playing the long game on this one. Phase 1 lasts through 2022 and after that they’ve got two more phases up their sleeves.
Eventually, the initiative will reach TV as well, as Star Wars: The Acolyte, the recently announced D+ series from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland, will be set at the tail end of the High Republic and possibly feature a young Palpatine and Darth Plagueis. By the time that comes our way, maybe it’ll have gained a prominence similar to The Mandalorian. And maybe the Gina Carano scandal will be a distant memory by then, too.