The journey from idea to fully-formed Disney+ limited series wasn’t a smooth one for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Initially, the idea of a Kenobi-focused story was imagined as a movie, but before any preparation could go ahead, Lucasfilm had to be certain that Ewan McGregor would be willing to reprise the role. McGregor had said as much as in interviews, but the studio wanted confirmation. “They just said, ‘Look, we’ve read that you said you’d be happy to do it. We just want to know if you mean it or if you’re being polite, because we’re thinking that it could be an option. But we want to know if you’re in or not.'” McGregor told Entertainment Weekly. “I said, ‘It’s absolutely true!'”
With McGregor on board, development began on an Obi-Wan-focused movie, directed by Stephen Daldry. However, Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s relative underperformance at the box office made franchise owners Disney reconsider producing any Star Wars movies that were not part of the main “Skywalker Saga.” Instead, the focus shifted to producing live-action Star Wars shows for the Disney+ streaming service.
“When [former Disney CEO] Bob Iger very specifically said, ‘We are going to start to shift our priority to making series for Disney+, and we’re launching the streaming service,’ that really was what shifted our strategy,” said Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy. “We started to look at the opportunity in the streaming space where we could do long-form storytelling, and we realized there was an opportunity to experiment in that space without the level of scrutiny that happens when you release a feature.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi eventually became a six-episode limited series, and series director Deborah Chow considers it to be as complete a story as any movie could be. “It was definitely conceived as a limited series, and it is one big story with a beginning, middle, and end,” she said. “The approach has always been that it is one full story.” However, Kennedy is more open to continuing the story into a second season, as long as there is a story worth telling. “It’s certainly something we talk about,” Kennedy said.
As well as a returning McGregor, Obi-Wan Kenobi will also see Hayden Christensen reprise his role as Darth Vader. Chow traveled to Christensen’s home in Ontario, Canada, to personally pitch the idea for the show to him. “She told me a little bit about the project and her vision for it, and I just thought that it sounded wonderful. I was very excited to come back,” he said.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres on Disney+ on May 25.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
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