Lucasfilm President Shares Details About the Future of Star Wars and ‘The Mandalorian’. Lucasfilm is buzzing with activity, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. With major developments in new content, finding a new way to work from home instead of in the studios, and working on future projects for television and film. Recently, Lucasfilm President, Kathleen Kennedy spoke with The Wrap about the future of Star Wars and the mega-popular Disney+ series, The Mandalorian. The Wrap asked Kennedy the reasoning behind Disney and Lucasfilm decided that now was the time for a live-action Star Wars show, when there have been attempts to do so in the past.
“There’s been no live-action work done in television by us until “Mandalorian.” But when Bob Iger (Former TWDC CEO) announced that we were moving forward with Disney+, the minute that he did that we jumped on it. And it really came about because I’ve known Jon Favreau (The Mandalorian Showrunner) and I’ve known of his interest in Star Wars for a long time. The thing that I think bonded Jon and I right away is we both had an interest and fascination in technology, and we’d been talking for a while about the fact that there was an opportunity to change things and create a workflow that’s different than what has essentially existed for the last hundred years.”
The Wrap then asked the Lucasfilm President about the technology used in the series and asked if it was the first time Lucasfilm had used the tech featured in the series. Kathleen shared, Not entirely, because no technology comes out of nowhere. Obviously, there’s been a lot of work we were doing inside of ILM. All the visual-effects houses and the gaming world has been ongoing discussions for the last decade, and there have been incremental steps going on in movies and in visual effects work for a while, most of all in gaming.. Game engines is where [we] always knew the convergence was going to happen that would allow for this. And Jon was using game-engine technology in the work that he was doing with The Lion King. So even though we ended up going with Epic (Games) and using their game engine, he was using a very similar technology. And prior to that, we had been doing some work with LED screens and with laser technology in Rogue One and Solo.”
She continued sharing that she was inspired by other filmmakers as well and how they make advances in film based on the production of video game design and techniques, stating, “So it was really the combination of all of those efforts and discussions and talent. Frankly, people are always what drive this. I’ve always loved the approach to this kind of development, even going back to what Bob Zemeckis was doing [on 2009’s A Christmas Carol] and what James Cameron was doing [on 2009’s Avatar] when Steven [Spielberg] and I did “The Adventures of Tintin” (2011). We were working near where Bob was working and where Jim was working, and everybody was visiting each other’s sets.”
Kennedy was asked about Lucasfilm’s quick response to the pandemic and how they managed to keep The Mandalorian on scheduled despite studios being shut down indefinitely. She shared the quick response from The Mandalorian crew and how they immediately jumped into action and were back to working on the series merely a week after the COVID-19 quarantines were initiated.
“Even though we wondered to what extent people could work remotely, our IT department and ILM had everybody up and running within a week, working from home and continuing to work in the cutting room and on visual effects shots. It was pretty staggering how quickly they got everybody up and running.”
Currently, Lucasfilm is wrapping production on season 2 and developing a third season for The Mandalorian. The studio is also gearing up for production on the limited and untitled “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series and untitled “Cassian Andor” series, as well as an untitled female led Star Wars live-action series. All three new series will premiere exclusively on Disney+. Reportedly, the studios is also creating a Willow series based off the 1988 film for Disney+.
The Mandalorian Season 2 is set to premiere in October 2020 exclusively on Disney+. Be sure to check back here at Chip and Co. for all things Star Wars and Disney+!
Featured Photo Credit: Lucasfilm
Source: The Wrap
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