‘Star Wars’: Ewan McGregor in Talks for an Obi-Wan Kenobi Series for Disney+ – Hollywood Reporter
The development positions the series as the third Star Wars title being made for the upcoming streaming platform, which is set to launch this fall and is meant to take aim at rival digital services such as Netflix while taking Disney and its brands into new audience realms.
Disney+ and Lucasfilm, the producer behind all things Star Wars, are already making The Mandalorian, a series based on the class of warriors and bounty hunters first embodied by fan-favorite Boba Fett, and an untitled series characterized as a prequel to 2016’s Rogue One featuring Rebel Alliance officer Cassian Andor, with Diego Luna reprising the role.
No timeline or creative talent for the Kenobi project were revealed. The Mandalorian is set to debut in November as a launch title for Disney+, while the Rogue One prequel has Stephen Schiff (The Americans) writing and showrunning.
Kenobi is a central figure in the Star Wars mythos. In the original 1977 movie, he is a desert-dwelling and war-weary hermit who later proves to be a wise and powerful warrior. Kenobi briefly mentors a young Luke Skywalker before being cut down by Darth Vader, his former pupil. Alec Guinness played the character, earning an Oscar nomination.
The character also played a central role in the George Lucas-directed prequels, which recount the origin of Vader and his betrayal of Kenobi and the Jedis.
In 2017, THR revealed that Disney and Lucasfilm were developing a feature spinoff for the character, to have been directed by Stephen Daldry, the Oscar-nominated helmer behind Billy Elliot and The Hours. However, those plans, and other movie entries, were shelved after the poor performance of another spinoff, Solo: A Star Wars Story, in summer 2018.
McGregor last starred in Disney’s live-action Winnie the Pooh movie, 2017’s Christopher Robin. He has two major franchise plays on the docket: The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, which is set to open in November, and a villainous turn in Birds of Prey, the DC Comics-based action-adventure featuring Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.
McGregor is repped by UTA and Sloane Offer.
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