Report: Sets for Favreau’s live-action Star Wars series are up, filming begins soon

Jason Ward at Making Star Wars has it “on good authority” that Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars series will begin filming in southern California as soon as next week… And they have set photos. It certainly looks like Star Wars.

If filming is indeed that close, that could mean that some sort of official announcement is on the horizon as well. (Though maybe not, as we have no real benchmarks for how a live-action Star Wars series would be promoted.)

Officially, we know from Favreau himself that the show is set seven years after A New Hope (so, three years after Return of the Jedi) and will feature all-new characters. The show will drop on Disney’s upcoming streaming service and is said to be budgeted for a high-end $10M per episode. We don’t have an ETA on the series, but the streaming service is expected to launch in 2019.

Rumor has it that the show is about Mandalorians.

Don’t expect pre-IX Star Wars movies on Disney’s streaming service

The older Star Wars movies aren’t coming to Disney’s streaming service, Bob Iger said during the company’s earning call Tuesday. “The marketing will make clear that it’s not going to be on there,” said Iger. “But ‘Star Wars’ movies that come out in 2019 and later, you’ll find them there.” Guess Turner wanted too much after all? The TBS/TNT deal runs through 2024.

The service will likely cost less than Netflix, though. And it won’t be totally void of Star Wars – in addition to Episode IX, there’s Jon Favreau’s live-action series, and given they’re getting new The Clone Wars episodes, we can expect the rest of the series as well – plus Star Wars Rebels, which has yet to stream at any non-Disney outlets.

Live-action Star Wars series has a $100M budget, 10 episodes

The New York Times takes a look at Disney’s upcoming streaming service and executive Ricky Strauss, who has oversight of the programming. But for our immediate purposes, there is one new nugget here: Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars series has a rough budget of “$100 million for 10 episodes.”

“‘Star Wars’ is a big world, and Disney’s new streaming service affords a wonderful opportunity to tell stories that stretch out over multiple chapters,” Mr. Favreau said in an email. He added of Mr. Strauss: “Marketing is about telling a story, and his background in that area allows us to collaborate and create new content.”

Information on the Favreau series is thin on the ground, but we do know he’s writing the whole season, it will feature brand-new characters, and it’s set three years after Return of the Jedi.

$10M an episode is roughly equivalent to the episode budget for past episodes of Game of Thrones. The final season of that show is now up to $15M an episode, per Variety last year. High-end TV episodes generally come out to about $5 million-$7 million an hour. The $10M price tag also puts this in the range of The Crown, which is one of Netflix’s most expensive shows.

We also get a timeline for when Disney’s new movies will stop rolling out to Netflix: March’s Captain Marvel will be the first to go to the new service, which means we can expect Solo on Netflix.

Jon Favreau drops some details on his Star Wars TV show

While Star Wars Twitter was all aflutter about Ewan McGregor attending last night’s Solo premiere (in light of the afternoon’s big rumor), it was Star Wars TV guy Jon Favreau who ended up slipping us some news. Favreau, who voices Rio Durant in the film, first told Anthony Carboni on the official livestream that he’s written about half of the first season of his upcoming streaming show.

Continue reading “Jon Favreau drops some details on his Star Wars TV show”

And the Star Wars live-action series goes to… Jon Favreau?

Iron Man director/actor Jon Favreau will be executive producing and writing the upcoming Star Wars live-action TV series, Lucasfilm announced today.

Favreau’s formal Star Wars connections began in The Clone Wars, where he voiced Pre Vizsla. He also has a voice role in Solo.

“I couldn’t be more excited about Jon coming on board to produce and write for the new direct-to-consumer platform,” says Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. “Jon brings the perfect mix of producing and writing talent, combined with a fluency in the Star Wars universe. This series will allow Jon the chance to work with a diverse group of writers and directors and give Lucasfilm the opportunity to build a robust talent base.”

Favreau is thrilled to be returning to the Star Wars galaxy: “If you told me at 11 years old that I would be getting to tell stories in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn’t have believed you. I can’t wait to embark upon this exciting adventure.”

The series, which doesn’t yet have a release date, will debut on Disney’s upcoming direct-to-consumer platform, which isn’t expected until 2019.