Disney is making a Star Wars show about the formation of the Rebel Alliance, but thanks to COVID-19, it’s hit a bit of a snag.
Disney has a lot of Star Wars irons in the fire at the moment. We’re getting a second season of The Mandalorian next month, there’s an Obi-Wan Kenobi show on the way, they’re making an animated series about the Bad Batch from The Clone Wars, and more.
And then there’s the prequel series about Cassian Andor, the Rebel spy played by Diego Luna in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Luna returns to the role for this “spy thriller” of a series, which is gearing up to shoot in the UK. But there’s a problem: with COVID-19 restrictions on, The Bourne Legacy director Tony Gilroy decided it would be best if he didn’t leave New York right now to make the transatlantic voyage, so a replacement director for the first three episodes needed to be found.
Luckily, Disney had one on hand: Toby Haynes, who made a splash directing “U.S.S. Callister,” better known as that one twisted Star Trek episode of Black Mirror.
Haynes was already being considered to direct later episodes of the series and he’s local to the UK, so this isn’t that big a change. This isn’t like what happened with the Obi-Wan series, which had to be put on hold and retooled for reasons we still don’t entirely know, although it may have had something to do with the original story — Obi-Wan keeps watch over a Baby Luke Skywalker from afar on Tatooine — may have been a wee bit too similar to the plot on The Mandalorian, with Mando protecting Baby Yoda. In any case, hopefully that series is going ahead, too.
And just because Gilroy, who worked on the Rogue One movie, isn’t directing the first three episodes of the show doesn’t mean he’s not involved. He’ll stay on as an executive producer and showrunner…just from across the Atlantic for a while. We’re all figuring this COVID thing out together.
In addition to Luna, the Rogue One show will star Adria Arjona, Denise Gough, Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard, Kyle Soller and Alan Tudyk, who will return as K-2SO, the misanthropic droid who charmed a nation. The show will deal with the early days of the Rebellion. We don’t know when it’s coming out.
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h/t Deadline