Actor, writer, director, and The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau has been hard at work these past few years bringing us the first few seasons of the great series that raised the bar for Star Wars series storytelling. It carved the path which is now bringing us Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor and Ahsoka, as well as Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic, The Acolyte, and Lando.
We are all anticipating the third season of The Mandalorian coming to Disney+ later this year, but in an interview with Cinema Blend at Star Wars Celebration this past weekend, Favreau actually confirmed that he is currently writing season 4! When asked about the growing number of shows set in the New Republic era of the canon and if that could eventually lead to some kind of capstone event (a la The Avengers), Favreau responded:
“With television, we’re very lucky that we don’t have to rush things through into an hour-and-a-half, two hours. We get to tell stories slowly. So now, as Dave [Filoni]’s doing Ahsoka, it’s very much informing the writing that I’m doing for [The Mandalorian] Season 4. It becomes – how should I put it – more precise.”
The Mandalorian Season 3 has completed principal photography, and while it’s in post-production, Jon Favreau is wasting no time pressing the story forward. As for the crossover opportunities that fans may get to see in the near future, Favreau explained that they are taking things one step at a time, and decisions are being made organically as the shows develop. Favreau talked about the show’s start, and his beginning blank canvas:
“When I was writing the first season of Mandalorian, I could do anything, set it anywhere. Dave [Filoni] would read it, we’d go back and forth, I would adjust. And there it was. Now we have to figure out why there are certain Mandalorians who wear helmets, certain ones who don’t wear helmets, what’s happening on Mandalore, what’s Bo-Katan doing at the time? How does she feel about that? Where is the Darksaber? So it really creates very fertile ground for imagination, for storytelling.”
He went on to add:
“I think that inevitably, no matter how simple you start, the story threads start to connect and weave and overlap. And with Dave Filoni’s deep understanding of everything around the time period, opportunities will always arise when we have story meetings and conversations about, ‘Well, you know what character would be here now…’ I mean, that’s really how the Luke thing happened. It wasn’t that we necessarily planned to include Luke Skywalker in Season 2. But as we were looking for [Grogu] to get training, we started to weigh out, ‘Well, what Jedi are around? Who’s left?’ And it started to not make sense for it not to be Luke. As we start to tell stories, those stories take on lives of their own, and they have trajectories. And then as those trajectories begin to organically intersect, larger stories with more characters start to make more sense.”
The show really has woven a deep tapestry of characters and story that are ready to go in any direction. That’s what’s so exciting about the franchise. So many possibilities to explore. What are you hoping happens in the upcoming seasons of The Mandalorian?