Andor creator reveals five-year narrative structure of the Star Wars prequel series
Rev up the Star Destroyers: The Star Wars prequel series Andor is going to be "huge."
Showrunner Tony Gilroy told Empire that the upcoming series centered on Diego Luna's rebel captain Cassian Andor will span five years, with the first year unfolding across the 12-episode first season, which is set to premiere on Disney+ on August 31. The confirmed second season, also comprised of 12 episodes, will encompass the remaining four years.
"The scale of the show is so huge," Gilroy told the outlet in an interview published on Monday. "Directors work in blocks of three episodes, so we did four blocks [in Season 1] of three episodes each." That ultimately led to season 2's four-year structure. "We looked and said, 'Wow, it'd be really interesting if we come back, and we use each block to represent a year."
Lucasfilm Ltd.
Gilroy continued, "We'll move a year closer with each block. From a narrative point of view, it's really exciting to be able to work on something where you do a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then jump a year." Gilroy also promised a more character-focused story. "Rogue One is more about an event than the actual journey of characters," he said. "It's quite amazing to start a show where it's not about where we can end. It's about, how did we end there?"
Rogue One, a prequel to 1977's A New Hope, followed the adventures of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) as she teamed with a band of resistance fighters, including Cassian Andor, to steal the plans to the Death Star, the antagonistic Empire's weapon of destruction. Andor is a prequel to that prequel.
"It's about him being really revolution-averse, and cynical, and lost, and kind of a mess," Gilroy previously teased. Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Fiona Shaw, Denise Gough, Kyle Soller, and Genevieve O'Reilly will also star in the series, which features the destruction of Cassian's birth world before finding him later as an adult.
"His adopted home will become the base of our whole first season, and we watch that place become radicalized," Gilroy said. "Then we see another planet that's completely taken apart in a colonial kind of way. The Empire is expanding rapidly. They're wiping out anybody who's in their way."
Watch the teaser trailer for Andor above.
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