Last year’s Solo: A Star Wars Story featured the surprising return of Darth Maul, arguably the single coolest character of the entire Prequel Trilogy. His appearance sent shockwaves through the Star Wars fanbase, most of whom felt that the visually striking villain was wasted in his twenty-ish minutes of screen time in The Phantom Menace. Now, the man behind Maul, Ray Park, may have just teased another on-screen appearance for the Sith Lord.
Park recently uploaded a picture to Instagram, to which a fan replied: “Your the fittest I’ve seen in a cool minute you must be doing some mail stuff.” Some folks on Reddit believe that the typo-prone commenter meant to say “Maul” instead of “mail,” especially since Park responded with a thumbs-up and a winking smiley Emoji. While it’s easy to write this off as some overzealous fans grasping at straws, let’s actually consider the possibility of the Sith Lord’s return.
Thought to have been slain at the hand of Obi-Wan Kenobi a full thirty-some years before the events of the original Star Wars film, Lucasfilm revealed that the character—well, what was left of him—had canonically survived in a third season episode of the animated Clone Wars series.
In fact, Maul lived well until about two years before the Death Star’s destruction, having finally been killed by an elderly Obi-Wan in the Star Wars Rebels episode “Twin Suns.” That means there’s over three-decades’ worth of stories left to tell, as hinted by Solo.
We know that the O.G. Sith Lord Emperor Palpatine is expected to return in some form in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but the exact details are being kept under Disney’s lock and key. One could perhaps surmise that the ghost of Maul may appear as well and bookend the final film in the Skywalker Saga, but honestly, that doesn’t sound likely.
Instead, I’d bet that Maul would most likely pop up again in a follow-up to Solo, which, despite being somewhat of a flop, fans are desperately trying to make happen. Even if we don’t get a theatrical sequel though, the standalone picture left so many plot threads dangling that it would be absurd for Lucasfilm to abandon them.
Considering that at least two live-action Star Wars shows are heading to Disney Plus in the near future, could Park be hinting that Maul’s next in line for his own streaming series? One can dream.
