At the moment, Hollywood is, to use technical terminology, all f**ked up. The actors and writers guilds are both on strike, fighting for better pay, increased job security, and guardrails on the use of AI. While that happens, no one can really get anything new off the ground, and many movies and TV shows already in production have stopped.
This is bedeviling studio executives, which is the point. Executives in charge of major franchises are especially rattled, since they’re in charge of complicated rollouts of new content, and any little change could upset their plans.
For instance, Disney has big plans for the future of Star Wars: the new series Ahsoka is about to debut on Disney+. Ahsoka will tie in with a new season of The Mandalorian, which has been running since 2019. And all of that will climax with a movie directed by Dave Filoni, with the rumored title of Heir to the Empire.
Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to go…
Will Disney turn The Mandalorian season 4 into a movie?
According to Making Star Wars, in light of the strikes, executives at Disney are now unsure if Dave Filoni and The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau will be able to produce both The Mandalorian season 4 (which is basically already written) and Ahsoka season 2 in a timely manner, both of those being prerequisites for Filoni’s Star Wars movie. So a new idea being floated is that, to save time once the strikes are over and people get back to work, The Mandalorian season 4 should just be turned into a film.
There’s no guarantee that this will happen, and obviously there are other options. Disney could delay things to give Favreau and Filoni more time to work. Or they could reopen negotiations with writers and actors to get everyone back on track. There are signs that the studios are willing to talk to the writers again, at least.
Honestly, some fans thought the third season of The Mandalorian would have worked better as a movie, so maybe turning season 4 into a film wouldn’t be so bad. Although it would be frustrating for fans who enjoyed the show on TV to now have to be forced to see it in a theater. That’s not what they signed up for.
Ultimately, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but these are the kinds of desperate measures executives may be talking about now that the entertainment industry has been turned upside down. We hope the studios come to fair agreements with the striking writers and actors soon. In the meantime, the first season of Ahsoka will premiere on Disney+ on August 23.
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