With the next movie over two years away, the immediate future of Star Wars is on TV—and there’s a lot of it. But one of those shows might not be happening after all.
Last year, Lucasfilm announced Star Wars’ Disney+ future with one series called Rangers of the New Republic. It, along with The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka were going to link up in some kind of major crossover event. However, a new report from Variety states Rangers is “not currently in active development.” io9 has reached out to Lucasfilm for comment or clarification on all of this and will update this post if or when we hear back.
The tidbit is from a larger piece the outlet did on this week’s internet hubbub about Dave Filoni supposedly having a new title as “Executive Creative Director.” However, while the title was new to the Lucasfilm website fans spotted it on, it’s apparently a role Filoni has been doing since last summer. Still great news though. You may already be aware he has his hands in the majority of shows currently being produced by Lucasfilm; he co-created Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance, and the most recent Star Wars: The Bad Batch, all before moving into live-action. There he’s been working with Jon Favreau on The Mandalorian—the third season of which is in pre-production—and The Book of Boba Fett, which is expected to be released later this year. He’ll also most likely have a large hand in the Ahsoka show considering the character debuted in his animated series.
Now, don’t forget Disney+ has Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Acolyte, and Lando also in the works, which aren’t directly Filoni projects but you can bet he has consulted on them in his new role. This all brings us back to Rangers. When Disney announced the show in December, the title and current direction of the Cara Dune character on The Mandalorian made it seem like she would be the star of the show. But of course, as io9 first reported in February, Gina Carano is no longer working with Lucasfilm, most likely due to hateful posts on social media. In the days that followed, reports were that the relationship with the actress and company had been a little shaky which was why Carano wasn’t specifically linked to the Rangers show in the initial announcement. So the future of the show was left uncertain and this new report is the first update there’s been.
“Not currently in active development” doesn’t necessarily mean “never going to happen” though. With all the shows we’ve listed above, especially the ones Filoni is definitely, actively working on, one could easily imagine he and the team are just filing Rangers away until at least one of these other new shows is completed and then taking it back out and reimagining it. Or, possibly, the company decided to wash its hands of it entirely to spend energy elsewhere. Not like there aren’t a million different stories set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Since Filoni’s Bad Batch is now airing, it’s likely the next Star Wars show to be released will be The Book of Boba Fett later this year. Both Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi are also actively filming, with season three of The Mandalorian likely to do the same in the coming months. We’ll fill you in on more as we know it.
For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.