The end of August saw the announcement from LucasFilm that a Disney+ series is in the works for Obi-Wan Kenobi with Ewan McGregor set to reprise his role following his turn in the prequel trilogy. While production wouldn’t have gone forward because of the COVID-19 pandemic anyway as planned, things were stopped awhile back as the scripts weren’t hitting where they wanted them to be. While we don’t know the direction the series will take at the moment, the folks at The Illuminerdi got their hands on the original logline for the show and you can see why there was concern over similarities with The Mandalorian:
Tatooine, a desert planet where farmers work hard under the heat of two suns. Meanwhile, they try to defend themselves and their loved ones from the marauders Tusken. A planet behind the edge of civilization. And a place where it would be unlikely to find a Jedi master, or an orphan child on whom the future of the entire galaxy weighs on its small shoulders.
Joby Harold was recently brought in to work on the series and get things back on track. With series writer Hossein Amini bowing out back in January because of this, Harold will now move forward with them. While serving as a producer on the third John Wick film, he also wrote the screenplay for the King Arthur: Legend of the Sword film and is co-writing Transformers at Paramount and working on Army of the Dead for Zack Snyder.
Deborah Chow previously joined the series as a director for it. Chow is a strong choice as she worked on The Mandalorian and has credits that include work on Jessica Jones, Mr. Robot, and Better Call Saul. She’ll also serve as an executive producer on it, as is custom for those that direct the first episode of any series/pilot, along with Kathleen Kennedy and Ewan McGregor. Tracey Seaward and John Swartz are also producers. Jason McGatlin, Lucasfilm’s Executive Vice President for Production, will serve as co-producer.
McGregor received lots of acclaim for stepping into the younger version of the Alec Guinness role for the prequel trilogy and he has said on multiple occasions that he’d easily return for more and even provided a whispered line in the current film trilogy.
In addition to The Mandalorian, Disney+ has a Rogue One character series coming focusing on Diego Luna’s character along with Alan Tudyk reprising his role of Cassian Andor and K-2SO respectively.
