Star Wars Celebration 2023 is more or less done in London but a few bits of news came out after the blast from Friday.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch has been renewed for a third and final season. Footage shown of the third season are described as "The footage revealed at the convention shows Hunter and Wrecker — the final two remaining members of the Batch — headed out to find Omega. For her part, Omega is in the custody of the Empire at Mount Tantiss, now playing some kind of reluctant role in Palpatine's cloning ambitions. Also trapped with her is Crosshair, now broken down and reckoning with the role he played in how things got this bad. Whether he knows about Tech's death or not is unclear. Did Omega have a chance to tell him? Palpatine arrives at Mount Tantiss to further his cloning ambitions, something we know will have ramifications through The Mandalorian all the way down to The Rise of Skywalker"
In regards to one of the three announced movies, the Dave Filoni movie that will tie together all the Mandalorian era (MandoVerse) tv shows is "6 or 7 years away." Besides the three official movies that may or may not get made, there have been other movie rumors floating around. , with odds being 50/50 at best of all three getting made, it seems Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy remains optimistic about other rumored movies. Another Rian Johnson remains a possibility saying "Rian and I talk all the time. He is unbelievably busy." Net result is could be years if ever. As for a Taika Waititi film, that too is on the radar where she said "Taika is still working away. He’s writing the script himself." So again no ETA.
On the TV front, news on the last TV shows not yet spoken about. Kennedy also commented on Obi-Wan Kenobi saying "That is not an active development. But I never say never, because there’s always the possibility." So yes that series is cancelled. Not cancelled is Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi which will get a season 2. No other details besides that.
Star Wars: Visions season 2 has a trailer (below). The new 9 episode season will premiere on May 4 on Disney+. Summary of each episode along with voice cast can be found here.
Here is the official trailer for Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi. The six episode series will premiere on Disney+ starting May 27 with the first two episodes. Series description:
The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat—the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.
The series stars Ewan McGregor, reprising his role as the iconic Jedi Master, and also marks the return of Hayden Christensen in the role of Darth Vader. Joining the cast are Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell and Benny Safdie.
Here is finally the first look at Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series that will premiere on Disney+ on May 25. The story is set about 10 years after Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith with Luke growing up on Tatooine while Obi-Wan watches over him from a distance.
The Book of Boba Fett aka The Mandalorian Season 2.5 just concluded its season. With that comes news of the next Star Wars series to hit Disney+. Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Ewan McGregor reprising the role, will hit the service starting May 25th. As the poster shows, this series will also take place on Tatooine (like Boba and much of Mandalorian) only the time frame is 10 years after the events of Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith (or about 10 years before Star Wars: A New Hope).
Other returning castmates are Hayden Christensen who will reprise the role of Anakin Skywalker. It isn't clear if that includes playing Darth Vader. Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse will play Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru who both played the characters very briefly at end of the Revenge of the Sith when Obi-Wan brought them Luke. No other story details but safe to assume it involves keeping Luke safe and his heritage hidden.
It looks like the wait for The Mandalorian Season 3 will be a longer one as the series is not expected to start filming until late into the year. The reason why is due to special "Virtual Production" stage built specifically for filming Star Wars television shows and pioneered by The Mandalorian Season 2. Video below gets into the details of the stage.
So with one virtual stage to film on and three Star Wars shows in the works, that means coordinating when what can film when. As of right now, The Book of Boba Fett has wrapped with goal of a December release date. Next to use the space will be Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series that will likely take 3 or so months to film. Once that completes work, that will allow The Mandalorian to take over and begin filming. The order of the television filming slate was likely also impacted by Padro Pascal's schedule as he is spending the summer filming "The Last of Us" for HBO.
The video below is worth checking out as likely more and more television shows and movies will use the technology once more virtual stages are built using it.
Disney has revealed the core cast and production start date for Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series. Filming will begin in April for an unknown release date but safe to assume it will be early 2022. The key bit of casting news is the return of Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse who played young Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru back in 2005 with Revenge of the Sith when Obi-Wan (returning Ewan McGregor) dropped off just born Luke. Details on the series story has not been revealed but with Hayden Christensen also signed on, one assumes to reprise the role of Darth Vader, it suggests that it will tell focus on some point where Obi-Wan had to prevent the Empire from discovering Luke's existence.
Today Disney held its annual investor conference. With the company as a whole shifting to a streaming model, that meant revealing their plans for 2021 and beyond across all their brands including Lucasfilm with Star Wars. The biggest bit of news is they have 10 Star Wars series that plan on creating over the next year or so. The release dates, what few there are, are pretty vague but plans are to start rolling things out likely in late 2021 and throughout 2022.
Star Wars:
Rogue Squadron
Andor
The Mandalorian Season 3
Ahsoka
Rangers of the New Republic
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Lando
The Acolyte
The Bad Batch
Visions
Lucasfilm:
Indiana Jones 5
Willow
Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman 84) has been tapped to direct Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. In a tweet the director expressed the project is personal as she wants it to reflect her loss and love of her fighter pilot father by making the "greatest fighter pilot movie of all time." Rogue Squadron is the designation of the pilots that attacked the Death Star in The Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope. Luke Skywalker is a founding member, first flight leader and the one who named the squadron using Jyd Erso from Star Wars: Rogue One as inspiration for their call sign (as depicted in Star Wars comics). In the now defunct Legacies/Extended Universe stories, Rogue Squadron continued on, members coming and going as the Resistence fought the Empire on multiple fronts. It later reformed during the age of the New Republic to fight new enemies. End result is the movie could pretty much be set at any time in Star Wars canon and use any old or new characters as it sees fit to tell its story.
Speaking of Rogue One, the prequel movie will get its own prequel series of sorts with Andor. Diego Luna will reprise his character of Cassian Andor. The series will show the Rebellion spy doing his work before his job at some point before the movie as it will likely depict origins of the Rebellion. Below is a brief a "sizzle reel" for the series.
The Mandalorian season 3 is expected to drop around Christmas time in 2021. It will also spin off two series Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic. Ahsoka will have Rosario Dawson return to the role with Disney saying its set "within the timeline of The Mandalorian." The assumption is it will continue to explore the characters search for Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars: Rebels. Rangers of the New Republic will follow some of the "sheriff" type characters that have periodically helped The Mandalorian. Exactly who will be in the series was not revealed.
For years it was rumored that next non trilogy movie would be Obi-Wan. After Solo failed to perform, the movie was cancelled. But not the idea as Disney decided to shift to a series. That remains the case but now its been revealed that Hayden Christensen will return as Darth Vader for the series. The series itself will take place 10 years after the events of Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith.
The details are light on Lando but Donald Glover reprise the role from Solo and likely will be set somewhere around that time period which is also after The Revenge of the Sith. Justin Simien (Dear White People) is set to create the series.
According to Disney's tweet, "The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic Era." The end of the High Republic era was depicted in Star Wars Episodes I to III but that era was around 1000 or so years old in time frame. Probably to give viewers landmarks, I wouldn't be surprised if the series is set a little bit before The Phantom Menace.
With all the live action announcements, Disney has not forgotten the cartoon side of things that kept the Star Wars flame going for years between movies with Star Wars: The Bad Batch and Visions. Bad Batch is set after end of Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series. The Batch is a reference to the fact that during this time all soldiers were clones of Jango Fett, father of Boba Fett. From Disney: "Star Wars: The Bad Batch follows the elite and experimental clones of the Bad Batch (first introduced in “The Clone Wars”) as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War. Members of Bad Batch—a unique squad of clones who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army—each possess a singular exceptional skill that makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew. In the post-Clone War era, they will take on daring mercenary missions as they struggle to stay afloat and find new purpose. This animated series will arrive exclusively on Disney+." Trailer for Bad Batch is below.
Star Wars: Visions will be a series of "animated short films, celebrates Star Wars galaxy through the lends of the world's best Japanese anime creators. Coming in 2021 to Disney+"
On a related note, Lucasfilm has other plans beyond Star Wars with Indiana Jones 5 going into production in 2021 for a July 2022 release date with James Mangold (Ford v Ferrari) directing. Harrison Ford will return to the role, likely for the last time in what many are assuming will be one more attempt to hand the role off to another. The current rumor is Chris Pratt. The Willow TV series is coming in 2022 with Jon Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) directing the pilot. Warwick Davis will reprise the role of Willow Ufgood from the 1988 film.
This weekend D23 Expo (D for Disney + year of founding in 1923) was held in Anaheim, California. Disney used that time to show off a bunch of news about various Disney properties and Disney+ plans. On the Star Wars front its pretty straight-forward but light on details. Here are the main things:
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 7 comes February 2020 on Disney+. The 12 episode series will show the near end of the Clone Wars and so final time period of the Jedi including the Siege of Mandalore.
- New The Mandalorian trailer below. Series set five years after Return of the Jedi (remember the EU of previous 30 years was trash-canned). The series will debut on Disney+ on November 12.
- Obi-Wan TV series set for Disney+. Ewan McGregor will reprise his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi. This series is retooled from the planned movie but Han Solo's box office failure caused Disney to put the brakes on future movies. No other detail were released.
- New Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker poster (below). A featurette was shown but not posted online. Just quick glimpses of characters, quick shot of Rey and Kylo fighting, and later Rey holding a dual-bladed red lightsaber.
- Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge expansion will include "Star Wars: Galactic Star Cruiser" which is a Star Wars themed hotel in a starship shape. It will have activities and designs to create an "emmersive experience" including windows that look out into space. As for pricing, well a cabin for five starts at $3,300.
With talk of the Star Wars Boba Fett movie, the question has become who else might Lucasfilm do the next non-Episode movie after Han Solo. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it appears they have turned their money making machine to Obi-Wan Kenobi with Oscar nominated director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) in talks to direct the film. There is no script, no indication of era it would be set in and as a result it means its too early to assume Ewan McGregor will be offered a chance to reprise the role. Considering the last two movies are more or less set as prequels to A New Hope, I would not be the least bit surprised if we get old man Kenobi on Tatooine as he secretly keeps teenager Luke safe from afar. That would allow them to cast a new older actor in the role. Considering this director's entire filmography is nothing but high drama and zero action, an older quietly working Ben using Force moves not lightsabers while trying to survive on a desert planet would fit right in his scope of experience. However this is still very early stages, as we have learned with all the problems Lucasfilm has experienced with directors, until principle photography begins there is no guarantee of a film and even then the director it starts with may not be the director it ends with.
