I think Star Wars could potentially be a yearly franchise (not as a massive juggernaut of the box office since it won't be an event but really solid box office returns) but Lucasfilm fumbled a bit when they made all 4 of the new movies so focused on the OT making the Star Wars galaxy feel like the smallest galaxy in existence. I think it also really hurt them worldwide since there's a lot of areas of the world that don't really care about the Star Wars OT (like China) and it's going to be interesting to see if Lucasfilm and Disney can win the people back who lost all interest in Disney Star Wars due to not caring about the OT.
There's little doubt in my mind the long term goal for Disney is making Star Wars a yearly franchise that can earn them a billion+ at the box office each year. I think that's a big reason they're bringing in Feige. I don't think they're going to ever expect multiple films a year but I could be wrong. Time will tell if it's possible or not.
I'm very dubious about that. SW fanatics overrate the EU as something they think everyone wants to see.
Fiege isn't some genius that can turn everything into a yearly IP, the comic book universes simply are radically different.
The X-Men portion of Marvel alone is as deep if not deeper than the Star Wars EU period. Wolverine is a more popular character than any EU character.
The nature of the comic business requires thousands of characters with monthly stories told in like 30-40 different story arcs. Fiege has been smart in adopting a tone that is palatable to "non-nerds" as well, you don't have to give a shit about Infinity Stones, you can find fat Liam Hemsworth funny and the movie works on that level.
I don't think Star Wars has the flexibility to pull that off.
The movies are too serious and if you try to make them funny, then you are going to open up another shit storm of nerds who are now angry that you've made the movies too jokey. Marvel doesn't have this problem because Iron Man established that as a central point of the MCU from near the get go.