Screenwriter and television producer Ron Moore has gotten a chance to tell stories in several different sci-fi universes. He developed the reboot of Battlestar Galactica and has written for three different Star Trek TV shows.
But his work in Star Wars famously never saw the light of day. Moore was hired to work on Star Wars: Underworld, a series that was first announced in 2005 and was intended to be the first live-action Star Wars TV show. Several scripts were written, but the show was put on hold in 2010, citing budgetary reasons.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Moore spoke briefly about his work on the shelved TV show and his desire to work on a project set in the Star Wars universe.
"It’s always something that’s on my mind but clearly, they have their Star Wars plate full at the moment. I’m not sure this is the moment that you go in and pitch a new Star Wars series over there. I would love to do something in that franchise. It was fun to go work on the abortive live-action show that I did way back when. I got a tremendous amount of thrill of writing lines for Darth Vader in one episode and it would be fun to do that again. It’s just not the first piece of development I’m doing over there but hopefully I’ll be allowed to do that at some point."
The “first piece of development” mentioned by Moore is a Swiss Family Robinson project that he is developing for Disney+ along with director Jon M. Chu. As Moore already has an overall exclusive development deal with the company, and a proven track record in working on stories set in elaborate sci-fi universes, it’s easy to see how this could lead to Moore getting a chance to bring one of his Star Wars ideas to life. When asked if he already had a Star Wars show ready to pitch, he elaborated a bit further saying:
"Nothing fully formed but I’ve got a couple of notions in the back of my head — ideas and arenas that I think would be fun to poke around the corners of the Star Wars universe — yes."
Moore, along with a handful of other writers, eventually wrote 50 episodes of Star Wars: Underworld, with the idea that the show would eventually have at least 100 episodes. Though George Lucas initially stated that the series would feature all-new characters, with the Emperor and Darth Vader being mentioned but never showing up in the show, Moore admitted in an interview last year that he had written a two-part episode where Darth Vader does appear.
While there has been no word on any additional development of Star Wars: Underworld, the series has never been officially canceled. While it’s likely that we’ll never see the show as it was originally envisioned, Kathleen Kennedy mentioned in an interview in 2015 that material from the show along with other canceled Star Wars projects such as the game Star Wars 1313, could still be developed into future Star Wars projects.
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