Obi-Wan Kenobi Uses Story Ideas From Cancelled Spinoff Movie

Executive producer Joby Harold explains how the Obi-Wan Kenobi series uses story ideas from the cancelled Star Wars spinoff movie.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Uses Story Ideas From Cancelled Spinoff Movie

Having first been conceived for the big screen, executive producer Joby Harold reveals the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series uses story ideas from the cancelled Star Wars spinoff movie. Harold, who is also the show’s head writer, is executive producing the series alongside Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm’s Senior Vice-President of Live Action Development and Production Michelle Rejwan, director Deborah Chow and star Ewan McGregor. The series will pick up a decade after Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith and explore Obi-Wan’s time living in exile on Tatooine and watching over a young Luke Skywalker from afar.

McGregor is leading the cast for Obi-Wan Kenobi as the titular Jedi alongside Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, Joel Edgerton as Owen Lars, Bonnie Piesse as Beru Whitesun Lars, Moses Ingram, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend and Sung Kang. Following years of secretive development, the Star Wars series officially kicked off production in May 2021 with franchise vet John Williams returning to write the main theme. With filming on the show having officially wrapped in September, Obi-Wan Kenobi is gearing up for a May release and the creatives behind the series are offering some insight for its elongated development.

With the show’s premiere on the horizon, executive producer Joby Harold caught up with SFX Magazine (via CBR) to discuss Obi-Wan Kenobi. In looking back on the project’s long development, Harold reveals that the Disney+ series ultimately used story ideas from the cancelled Star Wars spinoff movie and felt that a limited series model better fit the story developed for the character. See what Harold shared below:

“We certainly inherited a lot of ideas from the [story] developments in the past, but there’s also a lot of new directions and ideas we explored, building off some of those things we inherited. It feels lovely that it’s now this limited series, because it gives you enough room to really build the character out; you can actually now spend some time with Obi-Wan in his normal world before some of the things you saw in the teaser transpire.”

As Star Wars: The Force Awakens helped kickstart the franchise back into gear, Lucasfilm began exploring other means of expanding its most-successful IP, namely by ordering development on a variety of spinoff films, including one centered on Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. The studio would first move forward with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which received largely favorable reviews and was a box office smash, grossing over $1 billion against its reported $265 million production budget. Lucasfilm would follow this up with Solo: A Star Wars Story, though its financial failure would lead the cancellation of all anthology Star Wars films, including Kenobi’s, before many of the ideas were revisited for Disney+ shows, including The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

Whether it be in the form of a movie or show, the return of McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi has been atop many Star Wars fans’ wishlists in the years since the prequel trilogy came to a close. Though The Book of Boba Fett may have left a sour taste in some audiences’ mouths for Star Wars‘ Disney+ efforts, the return of many prior actors, including Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, and the tease of a rematch between the Sith Lord and Kenobi have kept anticipation high for the show’s premiere. The wait for Obi-Wan Kenobi is nearly over as the series hits Disney+ on May 27.