It’s been almost 10 years to the day since Lucasfilm and Dave Filoni launched Star Wars: The Clone Wars into select theaters worldwide, and now, the writer-director is teasing the possibility of more animated feature films set within the Star Wars universe.
ComicBook.com caught up with Filoni this past weekend to discuss The Clone Wars and that hotly-anticipated revival, along with the current state of Lucasfilm’s core film franchise, which is now building towards the release of Episode IX next Christmas.
And Dave Filoni? He’s hopeful of another Star Wars animated movie falling into place in the not-so-distant future, even if he’s wary of rushing a film project when The Clone Wars and Rebels both performed so well in the realm of television.
I think the one thing that we’ve been able to achieve with the Star Wars animation we’ve done is that the people, the fans really accept it as part of the story, and the medium doesn’t matter to the vast majority of them. Where sometimes people look at animation and think of it as something other, or something different than the rest of the story.
Either way, there’s a real sense of legacy swirling around The Clone Wars 2.0, which will premiere exclusively on Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming service when it goes live sometime next year.
Exactly what’s in store for our favorite animated Star Wars characters remains to be seen, but as Dave Filoni tells CB, working with OG Lucasfilm staffers (see: Dennis Muren, Bill George, John Knoll) is something he’ll never, ever take for granted.
George always treated the animation we did as part of his story, and he was just telling it with this different paintbrush now. I think the fans have really latched on to that, but I think it’s something that we’ve done, and we’ve tried to challenge ourselves to be great and push ourselves to try to meet that high level of the Star Wars films, dating all the way back to the originals. And when I see Dennis Muren in the hallway walking by, or Bill George, or any of the team that’s worked on the originals, or John Knoll, who’s worked on the prequels, I feel the responsibility to all of them. You know, Lynne Hale. Howard Roffman, when he was here. The legacy employees. That we continue to tell great stories, and make them high quality in Star Wars because that’s what we’ve always tried to do as a company.
With Episode IX penciled in for a release next December, the Star Wars faithful will be keeping a close eye on The Clone Wars as it begins to stage its second coming. And at least according to Filoni, another full-blown feature film isn’t off the table…
