Disney Is Going Back To ‘Rogue One’ With Streaming Service

A new “Star Wars” prequel series is on its way, this time for Walt Disney Co’s planned Disney+ streaming service, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said on Thursday.

“Star Wars” is one of Hollywood’s most profitable franchises. Since 2015, Disney has released two of three planned movies based around characters originated by director George Lucas in 1977, two standalone films, and has announced a slew of other spin-off projects.

The live action series will be a prequel to the 2016 movie “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and will star Diego Luna, Iger said in an earnings call. The series will start production in 2019.

Iger also said Disney is developing a new series based around Marvel comic book villain Loki, starring British actor Tom Hiddleston.

According to Variety, “Rogue One” star Diego Luna will reprise his role as Rebel super spy Cassian Andor in what was described as a “rousing spy thriller,” for Disney+, the company’s new streaming service set to debut next year. The “Rogue One” prequel is set to begin production late 2019, so I imagine it will be likely debut in 2020, after “The Mandalorian,” the series currently in production under the guidance of John Favreau.

That show seems to have a very “Game of Thrones” like $100 million, eight episodes per season, budget, so I would imagine that “Cassian” (let’s just go ahead and name it, why don’t we), will be in the same range. In the announcement about the show, there was no word on other actors from the movie coming back for the series, namely Alan Tudyk who played Cassian’s droid buddy K-2SO, Jimmy Smits who played Bail Organa, or Genevieve O’Reilly who played Mon Monthma. But I would expect them all to reprise their roles, at least for an episode or two if needed, particularly Tudyk. Being that this is a prequel to the movie, I doubt Felicity Jones makes an appearance, but it’s Star Wars, so you never know.

Luna said:

Going back to the Star Wars universe is very special for me. I have so many memories of the great work we did together and the relationships I made throughout the journey. We have a fantastic adventure ahead of us, and this new exciting format will give us the chance to explore this character more deeply.

This is the perfect format for exploring a spy character like Cassian. The slow burn of spy stories can be strung out over eight separate hour long episodes, over multiple seasons. It’s perfect!

What worked so well about “Rogue One” is that it showed the dirty side of the Rebellion, something that many people who only watched the main Star Wars movies missed. If you ingest all of the Star Wars there is to consume (TV, comics, novels, games, etc.) you see that the picture of the Rebels was more complicated and difficult than you initially thought upon that first viewing of Star Wars as a kid. Which is great! I love the more complicated picture now as an adult, and Cassian’s streaming stories will be able to flesh all that out. I could not be more excited!

The other thing that “Rogue One” did so well was get the look of Star Wars so perfectly right. Those scenes walking through the markets on Jedha, or back on the Rebel base, felt so incredibly real it was amazing. So much better than anything in the green-screen dominated prequels. I have every bit of faith that whoever Lucasfilm gets to take us back to “Rogue One,” they won’t mess it up and will provide the same amazing locations we saw in the movie, and many new ones throughout Cassian’s story.

Now the only question is, will General Hera Syndulla make her live action debut in Cassian’s show? Guess we’ll have to wait until at least 2020 to find out. May the Force be with you!

Disney said last year that it plans to launch its own streaming service in 2019 and would pull its first-run movies from Netflix to put them on a Disney-branded service.

(Excerpts) Read More at: Reuters.com and TheFederalist.com