Hollywood’s nostalgia for all things ‘80s continues to steamroll on unabated, and next on the list of revisiting everything the decade ever made is news that production is officially underway on the long gestating sequel series for Willow.
A tweet posted by showrunner Jonathan Kasdan shows a cap featuring the eponymous character in his movie costume affixed to a cork board, captioned: “The office is open.” Nothing has been said of the series other than the fact that Warwick Davis will reprise his role as the reluctant hero though, with specifically no mention of if or how his co-stars Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley will fit into proceedings.
https://twitter.com/JonKasdan/status/1214301547695226881
Directed by Ron Howard, plotted by George Lucas and released in 1988, Willow involves a prophecy of the birth of a child who will be the downfall of the evil Queen Bavmorda, a black sorceress who rules the realm with tyranny. The baby, Elora, falls into the care of Willow, a farmer, stage conjurer and aspiring sorcerer and one of a race of little people called Nelwyns.
Embarking on a journey to take the child to safety, he becomes embroiled in a quest involving warriors, fairies, curses, monsters and magic, all revolving around the helpless infant and the destiny she is to fulfill. For all its inventive visuals, the movie was a fairly generic fantasy story that received a mixed reception upon its release, but is fondly remembered by those who originally saw it as children, who will likely form a large part of the potential audience for the continuation.
No details have been released as of yet on what we can expect from the Willow sequel’s story, but since the film ends with the titular character receiving a book of magic, he may well have achieved his goal of becoming a sorcerer at some point in the intervening thirty years. Also, enough time will have passed for Elora to grow up, meaning that there’s every possibility that she’s now the queen she was originally prophesied to become and calls on him for help to deal with a problem threatening the realm, possibly referencing the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy of novels that detail her adventures as a teenager.
