Jon Favreau has just announced the title of the new live-action Star Wars series and, yep, as revealed in our headline, it’s The Mandalorian.
For those of you not versed in Star Wars-speak, fan-favourite character Jango Fett (from the trilogy we don’t talk about) was a Mandalorian, and he adopted his clone son, Boba Fett (from the trilogy we do talk about) .
According to Favreau, the series will feature “a lone gunfighter” hailing from the same planet as the fan-favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett and his father, Jango Fett.”
“After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe,” Favreau announced in an Instagram post. “The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.”
So we have a series taking place between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens leaning heavily on the legacy of a pair of secondary characters from the first two trilogies. My immediate reaction is that this concept doesn’t overly thrill me, seeming to be a bit too-fan fiction heavy for me, but your Star Wars mileage may vary.
Either way, The Mandalorian bound to be a huge draw for the nascent Disney Play streaming channel and the news of this, plus other shows such as the previously-announced live action Marvel shows (featuring the likes of Tom Hiddleston as Loki and Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch), plus shows based on High School Reunion and Monsters Inc., are certain to have Netflix execs feeling a little uneasy right now.
Disney Play (or whatever it ends up being called) launches late 2019.