Earlier this year, we wrote about how Disney Plus could be the Star Wars franchise’s new hope following its uneven movie sequel trilogy under Disney and producer J.J Abrams. Fresh off culminating season two of its first big Star Wars series hit, The Mandalorian, Disney is delivering more Star Wars content on Disney Plus than we even imagined.
During Disney’s four-hour-long “Investor Day” presentation on Dec. 10, the conglomerate announced a slew of new Star Wars shows and films that span timelines, genres and even live-action and animation formats, with producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni now serving as guardians of Star Wars canon an architects of its ongoing fate.
Below, we’ve outlined everything you need to know about the 10 new Star Wars projects coming to Disney Plus over the next two to three years.
Ahsoka
Rosario Dawson reprises her Mandalorian role of former Jedi Ahsoka Tano in this upcoming live-action limited series for Disney Plus. While details about the show are scarce, including when it will premiere, producer Favreau revealed in an interview with Good Morning America that it will be written by Filoni, who oversaw both The Clone Wars and Rebels animated Star Wars shows in which the character of Ahsoka first appeared. Favreau and Filoni will executive produce.
Based on Ahsoka’s live-action debut in episode 13 of The Mandalorian, in which she name-drops the Rebels character Grand Admiral Thrawn, we can speculate that the show might feature the live-action debut of the intimidating blue villain—and possibly even appearances by other Rebels characters, including Sabine Wren and Jedi Ezra Bridger.
Rangers of the New Republic
Following the dissolution of the First Galactic Empire in Return of the Jedi, the New Republic emerged to restore order to the galaxy, but not much is known about it until its defeat by the First Order in the sequel trilogy. Though few details about the show have surfaced, given its title alone, it’s sure to fill in some of the aforementioned blanks in the New Republic’s history while also tying into the Mandalorian timeline before culminating in a “climactic story event,” according to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. Chances are good that New Republic Marshal Cara Dune from The Mandalorian will play a large part in it, though.
Like many of the Mandalorian spin-offs, Rangers will be overseen by Filoni and Favreau. And while no release date has been set for it yet, it’s safe to say we shouldn’t expect this one until at least 2022.
The Book of Boba Fett
The Book of Boba Fett, the only new show not announced during Disney’s Investor Day presentation, was instead revealed following the end credits of the season two finale of The Mandalorian, which aired Dec. 18. The title of the show, along with its December 2021 release date, followed a short scene of Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) storming the former palace of Jabba the Hutt, now ruled by Jabba’s former majordomo, Bib Fortuna. Fett kills Fortuna, and Fett and Shand proceed to ascend the throne and seemingly become the new biggest players on Tatooine.
The show, currently in production, will take place within the timeline of The Mandalorian and premiere on Disney Plus before the third season of The Mandalorian debuts. Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids, Sin City), who directed Chapter 14 of The Mandalorian, will serve as executive producer alongside Favreau and Filoni.
Andor
What happened to Alliance Intelligence officer Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) before he helped steal plans for the Death Star and met his heroic but unfortunate end in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? Andor, a new Disney Plus series premiering in 2022, will explore just that, with Luna bringing back his much-loved Rogue One character to the small screen. Although not yet confirmed, chances are we’ll also see franchise favorites Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and Alan Tudyk’s droid K-2SO in this “tense nail-biting spy thriller.”
“The way you can approach a story like this inevitably takes you into a deeper process of reflection,” Luna said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Once you know what Cassian is capable of, then there’s room for so much exploration, and that’s something that excites me a lot as an actor. I think the format of a series is amazing because we have a lot of time to explore all those layers.”=
And according to costume designer Michael Wilkinson, Andor will premiere with a 12-episode season featuring over 200 named cast members and over 6,000 crowd people, so we can expect the scope of this show to be nothing short of huge.
You can see the trailer here:
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Deborah Chow, who directed two season-one episodes of The Mandalorian, will sit behind the director’s chair once again for the much-anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi six-episode limited series on Disney Plus. Announced last year, the series will follow the exiled Ben Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) 10 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, the final movie in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, as well as Darth Vader, portrayed by Hayden Christensen for (probably) more than just a minute this time around.
The Acolyte
Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland joins the Star Wars family with The Acolyte, “a mystery-thriller that will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark side powers in the final days of the High Republic era,” according to StarWars.com. This series is notable for its drastically different time period from the others, which are mostly set within the timeline of The Mandalorian and between the Skywalker Saga films. We haven’t seen any canon High Republic stories yet, though; in fact, we won’t until January, when a series of High Republic era books and comics will slowly start to roll out. If The Acolyte takes place during “the final days of the High Republic era,” does that mean it will serve as a conclusion to 2021’s High Republic era content? Again, we’ll have to wait to find out.
Lando
Dear White People creator Justin Simien will develop this brand-new Lando Calrissian series for Disney Plus. So little has been revealed about it, though, that we don’t even know if it will star OG Lando Billy Dee Williams, Solo-era Lando Donald Glover, both or neither.
The Bad Batch
Clone Force 99, better known as the Bad Batch, returns for their own animated show after being introduced at the beginning of the final season of The Clone Wars. The latter show began its jagged life as an animated movie, and a TNT series, all the way back in 2008. Filoni and crew gave the show a proper send-off with a 12-episode finale on Disney Plus over the spring.
Introduced in the first episode of that final season, the Bad Batch—Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, Crosshair and Echo—are five clones with unique genetic differences that make them an undefeatable team. Ming-Na Wen will also reprise her Mandalorian role of assassin Fennec Shand for the show. =
“Do you know how long I’ve had to keep silent about Fennec coming back?” Wen said in an interview with StarWars.com. “It’s a younger Fennec and she is voiced by me and I’m thrilled and beyond happy that Dave [Filoni] wanted to create more of a backstory for her.”
Filoni, Athena Portillo, Brad Rau and Jennifer Corbett will executive produce the series, with Carrie Beck serving as co-executive producer and Josh Rimes as producer. Rau will also be a supervising director, and Corbett head writer.
You can see the Bad Batch trailer here:
Star Wars: Visions
What happens when you mix Star Wars and anime? Star Wars: Visions, apparently. This 2021 series will feature 10 different “visions,” or short films, seemingly by 10 different Japanese anime creators that celebrate the world of Star Wars in a way we’ve never seen before.
A Droid Story
Very little has been revealed about this Disney Plus exclusive animated movie except that it will feature a brand-new character and everyone’s favorite droid duo, R2-D2 and C-3PO, on an exciting new adventure. Industrial Light & Magic, the company responsible for many of the special effects in the Star Wars films, and Lucasfilm Animation will be developing the movie, which has a yet unknown release date.
