Star Wars: The Force Awakens' success in theaters proves that the film's inclusivity works—and matters.

Director J.J. Abrams expects the franchise to explore adding openly gay characters to the cast. "When I talk about inclusivity it's not excluding gay characters," Abrams said Thursday at Bad Robot HQ during the US-Ireland Alliance's annual Oscar Wilde Awards. "It's about inclusivity. So of course."

"To me, the fun of Star Wars is the glory of possibility," Abrams added. "So it seems insanely narrow-minded and counterintuitive to say that there wouldn't be a homosexual character in that world." And he's right. Openly gay characters may be new to the movie universe, but have been previously included in the Star Wars expanded universe. io9 points out the inclusive of Moff Delian Mors in Paul Kemp's Lords of the Sith and Sinjir Rath Velus and Esmelle Wexley in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath.


And as The Daily Beast points out, Abrams' approach to Star Wars—adding the franchise's first female Jedi and black lead—has paid off. Star Wars "most progressive episode yet" broke box office records, driving Disney's most profitable quarter in the company's history.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens reached $2 billion in revenue earlier in February, showing that fans are eager to support something different.

Every TV show/movie nowadays has to fit in a gay character, it's ridiculous. Just my personal opinion, but whatever. It's overboard at this point. Ridiculous.