Difference being the previous Matrix movie was 4 years before Reloaded. Solo is the 4th SW in 3 1/2 years. Plus an animated TV show (which was actually pretty good), books, toys, etc etc. There’s been about 5 times as much SW in that time frame as the entire body of Matrix work.
Disney doesn’t own Deadpool yet, but according to all the buzz (mostly from Ryan) Disney ain’t into it. But Disney is into money. I know of at least one “make Deadpool make money so Disney keeps it going” social media movement.
It’s the casuals that make a movie make money. There just aren’t enough nerds to keep a tentpole up. And it’s the casuals that are the most likely to suffer from SW and/ or nerd movie fatigue. The SW fans aren’t boycotting, they’re bitching, but they go. Because that’s what nerds do. The old “worst movie ever” thing. They see it 5 times and bitch about it every time. And then they see the next one 5 times and bitch about that. They follow the Doctor Who life cycle, every outgoing Doctor is the best non-Baker ever, every inbound Doctor is the worst ever.
Actually, the Matrix, besides the three films, had the Animatrix series which were released before Revolutions aired, not to mention a chat blog with the creators of the franchise, not to mention the video game Enter the Matrix and the comic “Bits and Pieces of Information”. It was also rather notorious for essentially forming a new legal defense called the Matrix Defense, which was a variation of the Insanity Plea. In other words, it was actually about as overdosed during that time frame as Star Wars was during those five months (and I’m limiting it to those five to six months since you indicated Solo failed due to it being released five months after The Last Jedi). Also, I’m not sure I’d call Rebels particularly good. The so-called “victories” by the Rebels were actually pretty embarrassing, even if I were still someone who rooted for the Rebels, as it made the Empire look so grossly incompetent it’s a wonder they even MANAGED to last as long as they did (only Vader and Thrawn came across as even remotely competent), and let’s face it, if the villains are depicted as incompetent, it doesn’t feel like the heroes’ victories seem well earned. It’s sort of like watching Jessie, James and Meowth losing to an inexperienced and nearly dead Caterpie despite literally holding every advantage they could possibly have:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drUaIEbRr_c
And if they don’t even own Deadpool yet, they really have zero reason to make money off of it. Besides, they can easily make money by just releasing it DTV like they did under Eisner with those sequels, so that really doesn’t work as an explanation.
And that’s exactly my point. They’ve already ticked off most of the fans to such an extent that most of them are already boycotting the films (heck, I’m already boycotting Star Wars due to its mere association with Disney thanks in large part to their mishandling with Lefou in the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast, and even if that weren’t a factor, I’d certainly boycott Star Wars after the disaster that was Star Wars Battlefront II and also JJ Abrams’ insulting claim that The Last Jedi failed due to the audience being “afraid of women.” And don’t think that I wouldn’t do the boycott due to being a hardcore fan. I’ve actually been boycotting Pokémon since 2009, haven’t bought any of the games starting with Platinum, any of the card games, the merchandise, or watched the anime under ANY capacity, at most only frequenting internet forums due to my at least not having to pay there. In fact, if I DO get Pokémon related stuff, it’s only for stuff that’s actually free of charge so I don’t have to violate the boycott to do so. In fact, I only modified my boycott once since enacting it, which was to specifically exempt any Pokémon products that featured the character Misty in them. I’m actually a pretty hardcore Pokémon fan, so if I can boycott Pokémon for this long of a while despite being a hardcore fan, I’m pretty sure even the hardcore fans of Star Wars can boycott.). Not to mention the casuals certainly aren’t going to like being told Lando’s pansexual or that they’re afraid of women, so they’ve alienated even the more general audience, let alone the fans.