At Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm revealed plans for Dave Filoni to helm a movie that will bring together the many threads from the New Republic-set Disney+ TV shows for an epic big screen crossover event.
Very little has been revealed beyond that, but with Grand Admiral Thrawn set to return in Ahsoka, the prevailing theory is that we're getting a loose adaptation of the "Heir to the Empire." That trilogy of Expanded Universe novels was written by Timothy Zahn and served as the original "sequel trilogy" in publishing, introducing not only Thrawn, but Mara Jade as well.
During a recent interview with Empire (via The Direct), Filoni seemingly confirmed that the Grand Admiral will be the movie's big bad when asked if he's being lined up as this era of storytelling's main villain.
"Definitely, in my eyes," he responded. "When Timothy Zahn wrote 'Heir To The Empire,' Thrawn became this very iconic villain, because he was different than anything we’d seen before. He wasn’t another helmet-wearing, lightsaber-wielding bad guy, you know? There’s a lot of pull to make characters that are like Vader, because it is so iconic."
"He’s a critical player in this time period," Filoni said of the Chiss baddie who was added to the current canon in Star Wars Rebels. "We’re fortunate to have that character, and fortunate to have Lars [Mikkelsen] playing him."
He'd continue by saying, "I want to make sure that I’m honouring ideas that Tim had, so I want to see what’s [in his books] for the story. In The Bad Batch, there is actually some crossover with the book Heir To The Empire in the military base of Tantiss. So there are little things along the way that I’ve built across different mediums, all in preparation for things that come later."
Throw in Mark Hamill's return as Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, and we'd be shocked if the Jedi Knight also doesn't appear in Filoni's Star Wars movie, particularly if Mara Jade is about to be reinvented for live-action.
While some believe this project will serve as a culmination, it may well be setting the stage for a whole new wave of stories, and we're sure Filoni has a lot of very exciting plans as he continues exploring the period between the fall of the Empire and the rise of the First Order.
Stay tuned for updates.