Report: Disney Planning Multiple Live-Action Star Wars Shows for Netflix
By Kyle Warnke
Star Wars’ future on the big screen is pretty much mapped out until 2019. We have The Force Awakens coming out later this year, with sequels coming out in 2017 and likely 2019. And then we have the Anthology films to tide us over, with Rogue One set for 2016 and the Han Solo film slated for 2018, not to mention the rumored Boba Fett spinoff.
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But what’s happening with the franchise on the small screen? Sure, we have Rebels preparing to start its second season. But if Disney is following the template it set with the Marvel films, there’s still an opportunity to appeal to an older, more mature generation with a TV offering.
It’s already been reported that Netflix is the top contender for a live-action Star Wars TV show, which would scratch that itch nicely, but now a new report says Disney’s ambitions are far greater than anticipated.
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According to Jordan Maison at Cinelinx, the Mouse is looking at developing at least three new Star Wars shows for the streaming network. The article says this plan would follow in the footsteps of how Marvel is setting up its Defenders TV series by establishing the four main members of that superhero team with TV shows of their own, all on Netflix. It’s already started that with Daredevil, and that will continue with AKA Jessica Jones.
As Maison mentions, if true, this rumors points to Disney’s reluctance to host a Star Wars show on ABC or another channel they own. It goes to show that Netflix’s business model and tendency to encourage viewers to bingewatch fits well with production companies trying to suck viewers into a brand-new world. Netflix has also proven a good partner for Star Wars when the unaired sixth season of Clone Wars landed there, letting the series exit on a graceful note.
It’s unclear when such a project would come to fruition, although Maison speculates the earliest we’d see a live-action show is in 2017.
Of course, it begs the question: What would those TV shows cover, and when would you set them? We haven’t heard too much about any stories set in the sequel trilogy timeline except for the follow-ups to The Force Awakens, but I can’t imagine Disney won’t want to explore its own contribution to the universe.
But I also don’t see them abandoning either the prequel or original trilogy era, either. The comics are filling in plenty of gaps between the movies in the original trilogy, and we already have Clone Wars between Episode II and III and Rebels between III and IV. Could Disney possibly go further back in time, to a setting between I and II? Or perhaps even pre-Phantom Menace? Let us know what kind of show you’d like to see below!
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