Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have successfully expanded the Star Wars franchise on Disney+, starting with The Mandalorian in 2019. That was followed by The Book of Boba Fett, while this year will see the release of Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew, two more shows set during that post-Return of the Jedi era.
At Star Wars Celebration earlier this month, it was confirmed Filoni will direct a movie that follows the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic. The cinematic event will see him and Favreau bring these characters together for an epic crossover event, but what exactly will it look like?
Entertainment Weekly asked if's going to be akin to The Avengers, to which Filoni said, "We're in the right area code. We are definitely in the right space. I think it's going to be a clamoring of characters saying, 'How do I get in this picture?' And that's what Jon and I have been figuring out."
As for why the period between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens has made for such fertile ground to explore as filmmakers, he added: "Growing up with the original [films], Return of the Jedi was the end. But then you're always like: But what happens next?"
"And then when Episode VII was set so many years later, when I was a kid, I never would've thought it would've been that much later, but it made sense," he continues. "It created an opening where you go, 'Wow so a lot of the things that we knew before are probably in there. How do we excavate that?'"
It appears Favreau and Filoni are loosely adapting Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire," the original sequel trilogy in the Expanded Universe which introduced characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade.
We know the former will appear in Ahsoka, but will Luke Skywalker's wife eventually show up? While she was never mentioned specifically, both hinted that they intend to draw from multiple sources, including the EU, so this may well end up being much more than just The Mandalorian: The Movie.
No release date has been revealed for Filoni's untitled Star Wars project, but we anticipate it arriving in theaters in 2026.