Dave Filoni's new Star Wars movie will feature a mash-up of different sources and characters
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The Star Wars TV galaxy is ever expanding, with several new series set to be unspooled in 2023 and beyond. But that expansion is not just happening on the small screen, as some of the characters originally introduced there are now going to be making their way back to where the franchise first got its start — in theaters.
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have carved out their own inner rim of the Star Wars galaxy, creating and producing four different series all taking place in the same time period, a few years after the events of Return of the Jedi.
The Mandalorian was the first entry in the franchise, which then resurrected Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) from the sarlacc pit on Tatooine before giving the bounty hunter his own spin-off in The Book of Boba Fett. Both of those series have featured live-action appearances by Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka, setting up the premiere this August of her own self-titled show. That will be followed by Jude Law and a starship of precocious tykes in Skeleton Crew.
Lucasfilm (2); Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka; Grogu; Jude Law
So when it was announced earlier this month at Star Wars Celebration in London that Filoni would be directing a new Star Wars feature film for theaters set in that same post-ROTJ timeline, the natural question became whether the movie was the natural landing spot for an Avengers-type meetup between characters from all four TV series.
We asked Filoni and producing partner Favreau that exact question when they joined us on EW's Dagobah Dispatch podcast, and the secrecy-loving duo did not bother denying that an all-star outing is in the works for the big screen.
"We're in the right area code," Filoni says. "We are definitely in the right space. I think it's going to be a clamoring of characters saying, 'How do I get in this picture?' And that's what Jon and I have been figuring out."
For Filoni, his live-action feature film directing debut is the pinnacle of a journey that began when George Lucas hired him to run the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series that debuted in 2008, and then moved into Filoni's partnership with Favreau for The Mandalorian. "I think for a long time, as I've learned to work in this galaxy, it's a long play," Filoni says. "And if things go right, you get to do more of your story. Things I think have broken in a good way for us, and people have enjoyed the characters that we've been making. So certain opportunities came up the further we went along."
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni
As for setting all the series a few years after Return of the Jedi — the beginning of The Mandalorian takes place five years after ROTJ — Filoni feels it's the perfect gap just waiting to be filled. "Growing up with the original [films], Return of the Jedi was the end," he says. "But then you're always like: But what happens next? And then when Episode VII was set so many years later, when I was a kid, I never would've thought it would've been that much later, but it made sense. It created an opening where you go, 'Wow so a lot of the things that we knew before are probably in there. How do we excavate that?'"
Favreau hints that it may not just be characters and planets from the TV shows that pop up in their film — a hint backed up by Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy, who told EW that there are "a lot of sources he's drawing from to see where we're going." And it seems like some of those sources could even be ones that are no longer considered canon since the newer films charted a different course.
"When I was younger, we didn't have movies, but there were comic books, there were novels, things that are encompassed in the [expanded universe] or Legends," Favreau says. "Clearly, there are decisions that have to be made to fit it all together, but for us, I think one thing we're in agreement about is that the characters — as special as they are — the story has to drive what characters are."
When it comes to deciding which characters will get to make the jump from either TV shows, video games, novels, or comic books, Favreau says he and his partner try to channel their inner child. "We joke that it's like we're playing with action figures, like, 'What's in the box? Let's play with what's in the box!' And that's what you do when you're playing and you're a kid."
Which action figures they ultimately pluck out of the box will be determined by where the story takes them. "As we are getting deeper and deeper into this," Favreau explains, "you start to have to really map things out and figure out what that story is, and then have those characters fulfill what their growth cycle is and what their mythic hero's journey is. Those things have to fit together well. Otherwise, it won't feel like Star Wars."
That approach follows the map that the original franchise creator drew almost 50 years ago. That's always been George's base," Favreau says. "He's a student of Joseph Campbell. How does it fit into the narrative that has the hero's journey? And so as we have more and more characters line up, you have to figure out how those characters are arcing and if it feels ultimately like a Star Wars story."
To hear our entire interview with Filoni and Favreau about their upcoming movie, as well as The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, and more, check out the latest episode of Dagobah Dispatch.
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