A new rumor claims that The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm are planning to adapt The Mandalorian Season 4 into a theatrical film and that it might be the next Star Wars film to be released.
(L-R): Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), Grogu, and Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season three, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
This latest rumor comes from scooper Jeff Sneider during a recent episode of The Hot Mic podcast.
Sneider relayed, “A couple of months ago, I also shot this one down, there were rumors that season 4 of The Mandalorian could be turned into a movie. At the time I don’t think that was necessarily the case. However, that is what I am starting to hear. That the odds are in that project’s favor. Whatever the season 4 of The Mandalorian turns out to be, whoever is in it, whatever shape it takes, it is looking like that could be the next Star Wars movie and that may be the thing that’s announced before the end of the year.
He continued, “I think that Star Wars is anxious to make an announcement. I don’t know that it will necessarily be before the end of the year especially because the town starts to shut down basically next week, but I think that those Mandalorian Season 4 movie rumors, I think there was something to those.”
“That’s not confirmed,” he hedged. “That is just a rumor at this point. It remains a rumor, but when I start hearing it from my person then it’s like, ‘Oh! Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.'”
(L-R): Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season three, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
A Mandoverse film was announced by Lucasfilm back in April during Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London. Ahsoka creator and The Mandalorian Executive Producer Dave Filoni was announced to be the director for the film.
The Mandalorian creator and Executive Producer Jon Favreau had previously announced that The Mandalorian Season 4 had already been written.
Favreau stated, “Season 4, yeah, I’ve written it already. We have to know where we are going to tell a fully formed story. So, we had mapped it out, Dave and I. And then slowly you write just each episode. So I was writing it during post-production because all of it has to feel like a continuation and one full story.”
“La saison 4 est déjà écrite”
📽️On a croisé @Jon_Favreau avec @clairefleury1.
On a parlé de la saison 3 #TheMandalorian, de la saison 4 aussi, de #Ahsoka, #SkeletonCrew 🔥#StarWars #Grogu @BFMTV_Inside pic.twitter.com/qCrkxVBHeZ— 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐨 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐫 (@lenicolasbehar) February 20, 2023
Filoni, who was recently promoted to Lucasfilm’s Chief Creative Officer, also claimed that Grand Admiral Thrawn would be the big bad for the New Republic era despite the shows leading into the First Order and the return of Darth Sidious in Disney’s atrocious sequel trilogy.
Speaking with Empire Magazine, Filoni was asked, “Do you see Thrawn as the big bad of this New Republic era? Is that how you’re positioning him?”
He responded, “Definitely, in my eyes. When Timothy Zahn wrote Heir To The Empire, Thrawn became this very iconic villain, because he was different than anything we’d seen before. He wasn’t another helmet-wearing, lightsaber-wielding bad guy, you know?”
Filoni continued, “There’s a lot of pull to make characters that are like Vader, because it is so iconic. But the boldness that Tim had was to make somebody that wasn’t like that, that didn’t have those abilities, but could fight in a different way. In the words ‘Star Wars’, the ‘war’ part of it — him being a Grand Admiral, a leader, a military strategist, a Moriarty archetype, someone that will out-think you, out-strategise you — that really resonated. He’s a critical player in this time period. We’re fortunate to have that character, and fortunate to have Lars [Mikkelsen] playing him.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 08: Dave Filoni onstage during the Ahsoka panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 08, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
As for the live-action film, Filoni also told Empire, “I don’t think that I deserve anything. Kathy, upon seeing my work in the live-action realm, was like, “Dave, we have to have you do a movie.” My goodness, a person like that telling you that is an amazing thing. But I always look at myself and say, ‘Well, am I ready to do that?’ I appreciate that, and I think she would know. But it’s got to be the right story. And it’s got to be the right group of people backing you.”
“A big reason why I felt confident going into live-action at all was because Kathy was here. She’s been a very big supporter of me all along the way. So it’s a great moment, but I immediately think of the responsibility. I immediately think of the job that that’s going to entail, and I want to make sure I can do a good job,” Filoni concluded.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 08: Dave Filoni attends the Ahsoka panel at Start Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 08, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
Interestingly, this rumor comes in the wake of a listing on the Film & Television Industry Alliance’s website noting that Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s Rey film would be going into production in the United Kingdom on April 7, 2024.
On top of this listing, scooper WDW Pro detailed one of his sourced informed him that Lucasilm and Kathleen Kennedy are attempting to expedite the film.
He detailed, “She is allegedly in a very big hurry to get this movie into full-on production that includes trying to reserve locations very fast out of the strike as well as getting everything tucked away and done and put into place. They want to move fast. Still, I am told not to expect this film out until at the very earliest late 2025, but almost assuredly 2026. That means that even when this comes out it will still have been basically a decade since Disney made money with Star Wars.”
However, he also noted that executives were wary of the film due to the extremely poor performance of The Marvels, “Disney executives are very worried about this because of The Marvels. And here’s where that worry comes from: The Marvels is unlikely to break $100 million at the domestic box office. It is an unbelievable flop. It’s just unbelievable.”
“Now, what did the audience say about Captain Marvel for years? They said, ‘We didn’t want to go see Captain Marvel. We went because you told us we had to, to see what was going to happen in our favorite movies.’ And then because it was not a good movie, now we dislike this character,” he continued. “And then the audience celebrated when Captain Marvel was not in other movies very much. And then when Disney said, ‘No, no, she’s popular. Here’s the movie go see it. Here’s the sequel.’ Fans reacted poorly.”
“Rey is magnitudes higher than that,” WDW Pro asserted. “Because the way that Rey works is that when The Force Awakens came out, fans were told, ‘You’ve got to see this to see all your original characters that you love.’ And that didn’t happen. And then they were told, ‘You’ve got to go see The Last Jedi because you’ve got to see actual Master Luke training Rey.’ And that didn’t happen. And then they were told, ‘You’ve got to go see The Rise of Palpatine because you’ve got to see how this actually plays out. We’ve got a super secret plan to make this all be worthwhile, like we’re going to redeem all those characters.’ And then that didn’t happen. That’s three big movies that people were forced to go see where their favorite heroes were desecrated and where Rey was elevated.”
“And I think the Disney executives know this could actually be worse than The Marvels,” he added.
Daisy Ridley as Rey in The Last Jedi (2017), Lucasfilm
It’s quite possible that Disney executives saw the returns for The Marvels and believe the Daisy Ridley Rey film will have similar returns and have chosen to sideline it in favor of Filoni’s Mandoverse film albeit that film likely has similar problems to the Daisy Ridley film given ratings for Ahsoka were even worse than Andor despite Disney+ having more subscribers when Ahsoka arrived on the streaming service.
X user NowItsKnown pointed out that Andor’s finale beat Ahsoka by nearly 100 million minutes on the Nielsen charts. Andor had 674 million minutes viewed for its finale in 2022 while Ahsoka only brought in 575 million minutes earlier this year.
As anticipated #Ahsoka‘s season finale came in under #Andor‘s by 99Mil Mins.#Disney #DisneyPlus #StarWars@wdwpro1 @ValliantRenegad @KinelRyan @JonasJCampbell @Nerdrotics @GeeksGamersCom @BoundingComics pic.twitter.com/v6bpGMda3k
— MAC (@NowItsKnown) November 2, 2023
What do you make of this latest rumor regarding Filoni’s Mandoverse film?
Its obvious what this is. KK desecrated The Mandalorian with Season 3 after Favreau gave fans what they wanted at the end of Season 2.
KK wants to rush out and destroy the last remaining Star Wars property, and use it as a back door for likely Rey to be in it, and to spit on Star Wars fans one more time.
Dave Filoni sold out and was rewarded with Ahsoka, which ended up being a mostly bland, boring, poorly coordinated and pitifully executed show save one actor who is no longer with us.
This is a last gasp to stab Star Wars on the way out the door for KK.
I pray it doesn’t happen – at least not until she’s out the door, and ONLY if Filoni is removed from the project and Favreau is allowed to direct.
Because in Favreau’s hands and under his COMPLETE creative control, they can use a movie to reboot the franchise.
I sincerely wish Lucasfilm would take a look at my work. I’d solve a lot of their problems. After the disappointment of Mando season 3 I’ve little interest in the story going forward. I wish Lucasfilm would not have interfered with Mr. Favreau’s plans.