Disney’s standalone Obi-Wan Kenobi series has reportedly been shut down indefinitely, so the scripts can be totally rewritten.
The series was due to be released on Disney’s new streaming service Disney+, but it’s been confirmed the show will be temporarily halted.
Rumours the show had been cancelled began circulating last week on social media. However, these were premature and, to the relief of many fans, the series has – so far – simply been put back.
In an interview with Comicbook, Ewan McGregor, who will star in the series, said:
It just slipped to next year, that’s all – the scripts are really good. I think that so now that Episode IX came out and everyone at Lucasfilm’s got more time to look to spend on the writing, they felt like they wanted more time to write the episodes.
I read about 80-90 percent of what they’ve written so far and it’s really, really good. And instead of shooting this August, they just want to start shooting in January, that’s all. It’s nothing more dramatic than that. It often happens in projects, they just wanted to push it to next year.
There were further reports the show had been cut from six episodes to four, but McGregor denies having heard that.
Apparently, the filming for the show has ground to a halt because producer Kathleen Kennedy wasn’t happy with the scripts – something which McGregor described as ‘really, really good’.
McGregor also added that all the drama surrounding supposed creative differences is ‘bullshit’.
He added:
All this bullshit about creative differences and all that stuff, none of it is true. We just pushed the dates … last episode, [Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker] came out, everyone had more time to read the stuff that had been written, and they felt that they wanted to do more work on it.
Sources told Collider the scripts will most likely be completely reworked, with the hopeful goal of reassembling this summer, though this timeframe is not guaranteed. The team behind the series are now looking for a new writer to pen the episodes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It’s understandable the team behind the upcoming series want to get it right, especially after the last film of the Star Wars franchise, The Rise of Skywalker, received rather mixed reviews.
The film has so far earned around $1.03 billion at the global box office, and is on track to be the lowest-grossing of the sequel trilogy.
One thing British Star Wars fans may be pleased to hear is the UK launch of Disney+ has been moved forward to March 24.
In a tweet, Disney Plus News said:
DisneyPlus will launch a week earlier in Western Europe!
The streaming service is set to debut on March 24 in U.K., Ireland, France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
Belgium, the Nordics and Portugal, will follow this summer.
So, don’t be too down in the dumps if you were looking forward to the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, because at least you’ll be able to binge The Mandalorian for the time being.
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Niamh Shackleton is a pint sized person and journalist at UNILAD. After studying Multimedia Journalism at the University of Salford, she did a year at Caters News Agency as a features writer in Birmingham before deciding that Manchester is (arguably) one of the best places in the world, and therefore moved back up north. She’s also UNILAD’s unofficial crazy animal lady.