I agree, I’m… not hopeful about Ares. And yeah, if it bombs, that would do a lot to discourage Disney from making anything more.

I know I’ve said it before, but at this point I barely even care if any new canon comes out. I’m focused on fanworks. Disney had their chance, now it’s our turn to do what we want with the universe, in the form of fanart and fanfic. The people who are doing that good work now, IMO, are doing it better than a lot of the canon ever did.

But I don’t know what effect the new movie is likely to have on fandom and fan creators. I want more new people in the fandom, but a failure of a movie is not the greatest way to get them there.

I don’t know. I guess there’s at least a chance that it’ll be one of those things where the consensus is “yeah we all hate it, but the earlier material is better, so if you’re only now finding out about the franchise from this new movie, then you really should go watch the old stuff instead.”