Ewan McGregor attempted to set the record straight Thursday night after the media and fans were whipped into a frenzy over reports of massive rewrites, delays and even an episode count reduction on his upcoming Disney+ “Obi-Wan” series.
Varying reports have had the “Star Wars” production shut down not only completely but indefinitely, with staff reportedly being let go — with many already seeking other work — and the entire show in peril.
There have been stories that the episode count had been reduced from six to four, scripts have been jettisoned after Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy and that the show is currently without a writer as it looks for someone to come in and either drastically retool what’s there or start over completely.
According to McGregor, though, this is a lot of alarmist nonsense based on the tiniest kernel of truth. The actor insists the show will happen as scheduled, and is still expected to hit its initial launch date.
He did, however, confirm that it does come down to the scripts but nothing has been thrown out. “The scripts are really good. I saw 90% of the writing and I really liked it,” McGregor told the press at an event for “Birds of Prey,” per TheWrap.
And while he didn’t offer complete specifics as to what exactly is happening behind the scenes, McGregor suggested it’s a very simple case of writers wanting to take another pass at something after stepping away and coming back with fresh eyes. Not to mention that there’s a lot less going on at Lucasfilm now that Episode IX is out and over with.
“All this bullshit about creative differences and all that stuff is, none of it true,” he said. “We just pushed the dates. Episode IX came out, everyone had more time to read the stuff that had been written, and they felt that they wanted to do more work on it. So they slid the shoot. It’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds online.”
While it’s still possible that “Obi-Wan” will see an episode reduction, as reported by several media outlets, McGregor told ComicBook.com, “I haven’t heard that.”
He did confirm that shooting had slipped from August to January of next year, which is a substantial time difference. “It often happens in projects, they just wanted to push it to next year,” he said. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything will really change on the consumer end.
“I think they want to keep the same release date so it’s not really gonna affect the viewer in any way,” he emphasized.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t offer our own baseless theory, so here goes. “Baby Yoda” is the clear breakout star of “The Mandalorian.” “Obi-Wan” takes place on Tattooine. Social media created a secondary frenzy with the introduction of “Baby Jabba the Hutt.”
Therefore, it only makes sense that Obi-Wan is going to find himself having to take care of a baby Hutt in the new series so that Disney can have a new toy to market and promote … and maybe have this one on-sale when the series is running.
Plausible? Not even a little bit. But we’ve got a long time to play the speculation game, so why not have some fun with it. For now, it looks like its Hollywood business as usual on “Obi-Wan,” no matter how it might look from the outside.
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