By George & Josh Bate
Just weeks after the announcement that Dave Filoni would succeed Kathleen Kennedy as Co-President of Lucasfilm, a big update about his upcoming MandoVerse crossover project as dropped.
As reported by insider Daniel Richtman via his Patreon, Filoni’s movie will be redeveloped into a limited series for Disney+ if The Mandalorian and Grogu flops at the box office. This would mark quite the shift for the project, which was initially teased during Disney Investor Day in 2020 and later officially announced during Star Wars Celebation Europe 2023.
The project, which we theorize will be a loose adaptation of Timothy Zahn’s novel Heir to the Empire, will feature characters from The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew facing off against Grand Admiral Thrawn. An Avengers-style crossover project like this is clearly ambitious and seemingly necessitated being told on the big screen. If the new report is to be believed, however, this thinking has changed.
The news comes just months before The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters and brings the beloved characters from Disney+ onto the big screen. It also comes as Ahsoka Season 2, which recently wrapped production, remains the only announced live-action Star Wars show on the horizon. Recent reports have suggested that Lucasfilm is pivoting away from Disney+ toward theatrical releases again, but Richtman’s scoop seemingly counters this as it relates to Filoni’s movie.
If you ask us, we think the status of Filoni’s MandoVerse project remains up in the air. We think it will come to fruition, but the medium in which it does is unclear. If The Mandalorian and Grogu is a box office success, Disney will be eager to fast track more adventures with the duo on the big screen, and Filoni’s crossover movie could do that. However, if the film stumbles at the box office, Disney+ may be a safer home for the crossover project.
For now, we’ll wait to see what’s to come of Dave Filoni’s upcoming crossover project.