Death has never been a particularly difficult obstacle to overcome in the Star Wars franchise. Just ask Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master Yoda, Peter Cushing, Anakin Skywalker, Sheev Palpatine, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or the self-styled Rey Skywalker, who have each returned from their fictional and even literal graves when the story demanded.
Add to that list Rebel captain and intelligence officer Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna in the Episode IV prequel Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, who, like just about everyone else in that film, died while attempting to steal the schematics for the Galactic Empire’s newest superweapon in order to give the Rebel Alliance a new hope in their fight against tyranny.
Luna is set to return to that galaxy far, far away though in a prequel to the prequel centered on Andor and scheduled to debut on Disney+ as early as 2021, with Alan Tudyk also returning as the reprogrammed Imperial security droid K-2SO. The streaming service has already experienced overwhelming success with original live-action Star Wars content with the release of the first season of The Mandalorian, which is set five years after Return of the Jedi and eleven years after Rogue One. But this newest series has apparently been delayed due to the scripting issues – which WGTC first told you about several weeks ago.
Yes, even after Rogue One co-writer Tony Gilroy was hired to rewrite the pilot episode that Zootopia and Moana scribe Jared Bush had originally penned, it’s no longer the case that the show will begin shooting in June as initially planned. And while Luna insists that filming will begin in 2020, no replacement date has been announced yet.
This isn’t the first Disney+ project set in the Star Wars universe to experience delays, of course. A six-episode series focused on exiled Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi during his time on Tatooine between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope was originally scheduled to begin filming in July of this year, but was recently pushed back to January of 2021 because, according to star Ewan McGregor, “it gives them more time to write, make the scripts even better.”
At the moment, all we know for certain is that the second season of The Mandalorian is slated to debut in October of this year, while the shows focusing on Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi hover like twin suns over a distant desert horizon.
