The Ewan McGregor-headlined Obi Wan Star Wars TV show was, as rumoured, first supposed to be a movie.
One of the assorted television projects that Disney is preparing for its Disney+ streaming service is a series based around the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi, from Star Wars. Ewan McGregor is to star (reprising the role he played in the Star Wars prequel trilogy), and six episodes of the show are being made.
But once upon a time, Disney was reported to be planning an Obi-Wan spin-off movie, at a time when it was scheduling a Star Wars feature a year. However, the box office fall of Solo: A Star Wars Story led to a change of direction. And as a consequence, the Obi-Wan film was one of the casualties of that.
Solo, you might recall, was hardly an outright failure – it grossed just shy of $400m at the worldwide box office – but it was by distance a series low for live action Star Wars movies. Thus, in spite of the fact that Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) was lined up to direct Obi-Wan, the film was abandoned.
In a new interview with Coming Soon, Ewan McGregor has confirmed that the new TV show is in fact a retooled version of the film project.
“It wasn’t always going to be a series, not initially”, he told the site. confirmed. “When we first started talking about, that wasn’t really in the cards but everything’s changed so much, so quickly. It’s really exciting that it is now. I’m really into the idea to be able to tell the story over several hours instead of just one hit. I think it’s going to be quite cool”.
That one hit will land in the summer of 2020. After this year’s Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, Star Wars movies will be on hiatus for several years meanwhile. Although we also learn that Game Of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D B Weiss have walked away from developing a new trilogy of Star Wars films.
More on that as we hear it.
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