The Mandalorian: Jon Favreau reveals first footage of Star Wars TV show

The Mandalorian - Disney/Lucasfilm
The Mandalorian - Disney/Lucasfilm

Following the release the first trailer for the Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, George Lucas’s galaxy is still expanding.

Disney has now released the first footage of the upcoming Star Wars live-action television series. Revealed at the Star Wars Celebration in Chicago on Sunday, the web series is called The Mandalorianto, and will premiere on the streaming service Disney+ after its launch in the autumn. This will be the first major television series to air on the service: it will be eight episodes long and reportedly cost $100 million to make.

Pedro Pascal, best known for his roles in Narcos and Game of Thrones, will play the lead in the series. The footage shown on Sunday revealed Pascal’s character following a dot on a tracking beacon across a frozen planet and encountering aliens after arriving at a cantina.

The audience at the Star Wars Celebration were also privy to some behind-the-scenes footage, which included the Mandalorian riding a “Dewback” (a giant lizard from Tatooine). The series will reportedly use motion-capture technology to create live-action effects.

Although the footage is not yet available online, writer and creator Jon Favreau revealed some details about The Mandalorian in an Instagram post back in October. He wrote: “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”.

According to reports, the series is set three years on from Return of the Jedi – seven years after Battle of Endor.

Deadpool star Gina Carano will also feature in this highly anticipated production, along with Werner Herzog, Nick Nolte, Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad, Emily Swallow, Carl Weathers and Omid Abtahi.

The new series is expected to air on November 12, 2019 in the US, but Disney+ isn’t expected to launch in the UK until the first half of 2020.