Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally planned as a movie trilogy

Hard to believe, but the highly anticipated Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series is finished already on Disney+. Over the course of six episodes, we saw Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) go from a sad, defeated hermit living in the desert to regaining his trust in the Force and himself.

It was an epic journey, but that journey is at an end. Maybe. For now. Because we all know that if something is successful, studios will move galaxies to make a sequel. While many fans enjoyed Obi-Wan Kenobi a lot, others (myself included) have wondered if the show’s narrative would have been better served if it were more concisely told in a movie.

As it turns out, that was actually Lucasfilm’s original plan for Obi-Wan Kenobi. Long before it was envisioned as a limited series on Disney+, the studio was developing it as a feature film with Stephen Daldry and Hossein Amini attached to write and direct. But after Solo underperformed at the box office and Disney+ was launched, the Obi-Wan Kenobi movie was reimagined as a series with Joby Harrold penning the scripts and Deborah Chow serving as director.

Yet before the Disney+ series, before even the movie with Daldry and Amini, there was another writer attached to Obi-Wan Kenobi : Stuart Beattie. Beattie received credit for his writing in episodes 1, 2, 3, and 6 of the limited series, because the show used a lot of his ideas originally meant for a film. And not just one film, but a whole trilogy centered around the evolution of Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was planned as a movie trilogy, and the limited series only covered the events of the first film

In a recent interview with The Direct, Beattie revealed that while he’s credited in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, he had no involvement with its actual production. “Right, so none at all. I wrote the film that they based the show on,” he said. “So, yeah. I spent like a year, year-and-a-half working on it. And then, when the decision was made not to make any more spin-off films after Solo came out, I left the project and went on to other things. Joby came on and took my scripts and turned it from two hours into six. So, I did not work with them at all, I just got credit for the episodes because it was all my stuff.”

"So when I pitched my Obi-Wan story to Lucasfilm, I said, ‘There’s actually three stories here. Because there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make in order to go from Obi-Wan to Ben.’ And the first one was the first movie, which was the show, which was, ‘Surrender to the will of the Force. Transport your will, surrender your will. Leave the kid alone.’ So then, the second [movie] was thinking about where Kenobi ends up. And one of the most powerful and probably the most powerful moment in all of Obi-Wan’s story is that moment where he sacrifices himself in A New Hope. Great moment, you know, makes you cry. But, if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty sudden thing, to just kind of go be fighting a guy, to see Luke and go, ‘I’m gonna die.’ You know, that to me, that required forethought. That required pre-acceptance that this was going to happen."

There have been rumblings that a second season for Obi-Wan Kenobi might be in consideration at Lucasfilm. If it were to be made, Lucasfilm could use Beattie’s idea for a second movie:

"[I]t’s one of those universal things we all struggle with, to come to terms with our own mortality. So, that was the second step of the evolution for me, that Obi-Wan now has to come to terms with his own mortality, somehow in a prophecy, or Qui-Gon telling him, ‘There’s going to come a moment where you’re gonna have to sacrifice yourself for the good,’ And then [Obi-Wan] is like, ‘What? No, no, no, no, I’m here to help… I can’t, no.’ And get him to that point where Obi Wan has accepted the idea that he’s going to die, and that he’s going to die willingly at a crucial moment, and you will know when that moment presents itself. So that when that moment comes up in [A New Hope], you understand. He’s recognizing he’s been on this journey already, and he’s waiting for this moment, and that’s how he’s able to make it so easily. To do this [sacrifice], and die. So that to me was the second evolution, the second film, the second story."

You wonder if there’s a writer doing a draft of this for Kathleen Kennedy right now…”So for me, if I have anything to do with the second season of Obi Wan, that’s the character evolution that I would take him on,” Beattie continued. “That, to me, is really interesting. And like I said, universal.”

Lucasfilm pulled the plug on the Obi-Wan Kenobi movie trilogy because of Solo

It’s a testament to Beattie’s original Obi-Wan Kenobi treatment that Lucasfilm referred to it so much in order to make the limited series, years later and in an entirely different format. While Beattie does specify that he only did a proper screen treatment for the first of the projected trilogy — which is normal, treatments for future films would only get done if the first was made — he does say that there was a lot of support for the project from the studio.

What changed? In a word: Solo. “Yeah, Ewan [McGregor] was on board, everyone. We were like, ‘Yeah, ready to go.’ And we were so excited about it, too… It’s a great story to tell, right? It’s such a fitting character and Ewan is just so fantastic at it. And he’s the perfect age, everything,” Beattie said. “It just was dying to be done. You know, unfortunately, it’s just, it was Solo that changed the direction of the system. I like Solo, personally, but it hadn’t made a lot of money.”

"It is crazy in some ways to think about it how it [was directed by] of the best filmmakers working today. But, just because it didn’t hit a certain number, they just had to rethink. And, again, way above my paygrade, but it certainly crushed us. Devastated, absolutely devastated. But, that’s the business, you know, highs and lows. I’m glad it got made. I’m glad the show got made. I’m proud of my story that [got] told. I’m glad my characters are all through it. And I’m glad I got credit for it. I wish, I wish they’d been able to make my movies."

According to The Observer, Solo was the first Star Wars movie that actually lost money at the box office, pulling in just $379 million globally on a reported budget of nearly $300 million. By the time you factor in marketing and everything else that goes into a movie release, it’s easy to see how Lucasfilm might have decided to rethink things.

Obi-Wan Kenobi finale viewership was 20% higher than The Book of Boba Fett

Fortunately for the Star Wars fans, Obi-Wan Kenobi has done quite well on Disney+. Deadline reports that the finale episode of the limited series pulled in 1.8 million households in the U.S. during its first five days on offer, which is a 20% increase over the 1.5 million who watched The Book of Boba Fett’s finale back in February.

That makes the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale the most-viewed finale episode yet for a Star Wars series on Disney+. The Mandalorian season 2 clocked in at 1.1 million households, for reference. That second season is getting more likely by the day.

All six episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi are now available on Disney+.

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