It was not long ago when it was circulating across the Internet that both ‘Boba Fett’ and ‘Obi Wan’ films were in development as anthologies in the same vein as ‘Rogue One’ and ‘Solo’. The ‘Obi Wan’ film was planned to be the next anthology in the ‘A Star Wars Story’ anthology film series with Stephen Daldry (‘The Crown’) attached to direct. Production was even planned to begin in April 2019 in Pinewood Studios, UK under the working title ‘Joshua Tree’.
However, plans change. Following the release of ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ in May 2018 which although it received pleasant enough response from audiences and critics alike, the film made a dismal $392.9M worldwide. Compared to Lucasfilm’s previous three films under their Disney leadership, all of which managed to make over $1B and even ‘The Force Awakens’ managed to cross the $2B boundary, ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ was a huge disappointment financially for both Lucasfilm and Disney.
There are many theories for why ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ failed at the box office but it really came down to the marketing of the film. The film failed to sell to audiences why they should watch the origin of Han Solo, a character they recently saw die in ‘The Force Awakens’, over films such as ‘Deadpool 2’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. The film needed to stand among the large competitors however the marketing did not tell audiences why they should go to the cinema to watch the film.
Following this, things went dark on the ‘Obi Wan’ movie whilst the ‘Boba Fett’ film hired director James Mangold (‘Logan’, ‘The Wolverine’) who was subsequently let go when it was announced by Kathleen Kennedy (via Erick Weber) that the film would not be going forward. It was theorised that this was because Jon Favreau’s ‘The Mandalorian’ was pushed into development for Disney+ and Lucasfilm did not wish to have two similar properties running at the same time.
However, this posed a interesting question, although the ‘Boba Fett’ film was canned, ‘The Mandalorian’ follows a similar type of character and as time went on, people begun to theorise that the ‘Obi-Wan’ film would also get transformed into a Disney+ series.
StarWarsNewsNet then released a report stating that they had been told that a ‘Obi Wan’ Series was being considered for Disney+. When discussing with our sources, we were told a ‘Obi Wan’ is currently in early development for Disney+. It is currently unknown who will make up the writing staff, as well as who will be the showrunner. However we do know, like with all current Star Wars projects that Kathleen Kennedy will executive produce. The series is expected to be limited and only be 6-8 episodes long rather than have multiple seasons. Filming is planned to take place in the UK.
In regards to whether Ewan McGregor will reprise his role as Obi-Wan, it is currently unclear but I cannot imagine them doing it without him since McGregor wants to reprise the role and he was beloved by fans in the role.
Disney+ is expanding their content widely, not only do they have the return of ‘The Clone Wars as well as ‘The Mandalorian’ and the ‘Cassian Andor’ series, Disney+ is also planning to develop shows such as ‘Vision and the Scarlet Witch, ‘Lady Sif’, ‘Falcon & Winter Solider’, ‘Loki’, ‘What If’, ‘Muppets Live Another Day’, ‘Disney Villains’, ‘Noelle’, ‘Magic Camp’, ‘Lady and the Tramp’, ‘The Sword in the Stone’, ‘Stargirl’, ‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’, ‘Sister Act 3’, ‘The Grimm Legacy’ among many others.
When we approached Disney representatives for a comment, they declined to comment on the story.
