Vanity Fair Article Outlines Future of Star Wars for TV and Film

Vanity Fair is providing a pretty good look Disney+ every expanding Star Wars TV universe. The article is worth reading for fans. Below if a a few highlights of note. 

TV Shows: 

- Obi-Wan Kenobi is out May 27 as Ewan McGregor reprises the role to protect Luke from an Inquistor that hunts down the Jedi and potential force users. 

- Andor, coming out late summer, will focus on the character from Star Wars: Rogue One along with Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) who becomes the leader of the Rebels. 

 - The Mandalorian season 3 is aiming for late 2022 to early 2023 release date. 

 - Ahsoka is still in the works, no release date set but aiming for 2023 release. 

- The Acolyte is also planned, set about 100 years before The Phantom Menace. Set in the time of a "prosperous and seemingly peaceful era" at least on the surface. 

- "Grammar Rodeo", code name for untitled Star Wars series set in same period as The Mandalorian from director Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home) and writer Chris Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming), is described as "galactic version of classic Amblin coming-of-age adventure films of the ’80s." 

TV Shows Highlights: 

- Mary Elizabeth Winstead has been cast in Ahsoka in unnamed role. 

- Andor is described by lead Diego Luna as "a refugee story, with desperate people fleeing the Empire at the full force of its power." 

- Dave Filoni, who worked along side George Lucas and worked on all Star Wars cartoons, had added to the Mandalorian people that was different then The Mandalorian creator Jon Farveau was planning. The two worked together to merge their visions of the culture. 

- “I think people now look back and think it was like a slam dunk, but we were very cautious,” Filoni says of the Child. “The amount of measuring, especially in the first season, for how we were framing this kid took a lot of effort.” 

- Star Wars TV shows are filmed in studio space called The Volume (also called StageCraft), where large curved LED wall allows them to create whatever environment they need to create look as if filmed on location. Four Volumes now exist, three in LA, one in London and one in Vancouver. 

- Decision to add Darth Vader, played by Hayden Christensen, to Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn't decided until March 2020. Initial drafts of the show concept did not include him in large part because of their final confrontation in A New Hope. 

- The decision to cast Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka was influenced by fan art of her as the character. - Kathleen Kennedy on re-casting the core Star Wars cast, "There should be moments along the way when you learn things. Now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that." (Stupid lesson to take from the Solo film not doing well instead of recognizing it was a weak story that came out just a few months after audience divisive The Last Jedi.) 

Movies: 

- Untitled movie from director Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnorok) and writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917) is first in new pipeline. No release date or other story details. 

- Rogue Squadron, from director Patty Jenkins, is still planned but that could be many years away. 

- Rian Johnson (The Last Jedi) was going to do a new trilogy but that is on hold due to his Netflix deal for the Knives Out franchise. (It is likely dead.) “I hesitate to use the word trilogies anymore because Star Wars is much more about persistent storytelling,” Kennedy says.