Ewan McGregor Says Obi-Wan Kenobi Was Meant to Have a Movie

Before it became a Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally a big budget movie.

Obi-Wan actor Ewan McGregor revealed the change of course during an interview with Vanity Fair (linked below), saying that his role reprisal originally came about after mounting pressure from fans and the media.

“The end of every interview was like, ‘will you be playing Obi-Wan?’” McGregor says. “There was no plan.”

Eventually, McGregor got in touch with a Disney representative and told them he meant what he’d said in the interviews.

“We were talking about a movie at that point, not a TV series, because that hadn’t happened yet. Disney+ wasn’t there yet.” Disney+ was launched on November 12, 2019, meaning Obi-Wan Kenobi must have been in development for the better part of half a decade before its eventual release in 2022.

However, following the widely panned prequel trilogy, McGregor didn’t initially feel like returning to the role. “For it to come out and be really panned, that was hard….so when 3 finished, I was off. I was just like, ‘see you later.’”

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss weren't so lucky with their Star Wars pitch. The Game of Thrones writers reveal their cancelled Star Wars movie.

Watch the interview below