As long as humans walk this earth there will be Star Wars content for them to enjoy. Disney has assured this. There are multiple films in the works—along with the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga—and multiple live action TV shows currently in production, the first of which is written and executive produced by Jon Favreau. This one, Favreau announced this week will be called The Mandalorian. As he wrote on Instagram:
After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.
While there's not an exact release date attached to The Mandalorian yet, we do know that it will debut on the new Disney streaming platform, which will launch in late 2019. Since this streaming platform is a massive step for Disney, they've invested a ton of money into this show. The Mandalorian will cost roughly $100 million for 10 episodes, the New York Times has reported. At a price tag of $10 million an episode, that places the upcoming Star Wars series among the most expensive TV shows of all time. For reference, the sixth season of Game of Thrones cost something around $10 million an episode, and its final season will cost something around $15 million.
This series will take place seven years after Return of the Jedi, where the best known Mandalorian warrior, Boba Fett (the clone of Jango Fett, who claimed to be from a Mandalorian planet), appeared to have died on Tatooine. As the Star Wars Wiki describes Mandalorians:
Mandalorians were a predominantly human ethnolinguistic cultural group who originated on the planet Mandalore. Mandalorians had a particularly unique role in galactic history as legendary warriors against the Jedi, and could be commonly found not only on the Mandalorian homeworld and its moon, Concordia, but across Mandalorian Spaceand the galaxy at large on worlds such as Kalevala, Krownest, and Concord Dawn. Mandalore had a largely martial history, but by the time of the Clone Wars the pacifist and reformist New Mandalorianpolitical faction controlled Mandalore's government, led by DuchessSatine Kryze. This led to internal conflict with other Mandalorian groups like Death Watch, who wanted to maintain the warrior ways of their Mandalorian heritage.
In other words, there's a long and complex history to this culture that's far removed from the events in Star Wars that we've seen so far. Away from the confines of the Skywalker-centric saga, Favreau is pretty free to do what he wants.
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
