Disney has released the first poster and official trailer for the first live-action Star Wars drama series, The Mandalorian, that will start on its upcoming new video streaming service Disney+ on 12 November.
Meanwhile Ewan McGregor who appeared at Disney's D23 Expo in Anaheim, California in the United States that kicked off on Friday, confirmed last week's news that he will be reprising his Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi role from the Star Wars films for a new Disney+ drama series that will start filming in 2020.
Disney announced in the past week that it will launch Disney+ on 12 November in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands and a week later in Australia and New Zealand.
With The Walt Disney Company that decided not to launch its new subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD) in Africa and South Africa, many South Africans in the week said that they would love to pay Disney for the Disney+ service that will cost around R100 per month in each of these countries.
Disney doesn't consider South Africa to be one of its "major regions" in the world according to its latest investors presentation with South Africa that might get Disney+ only from around 2022 or later.
South Africans indicated that they will likely resort to using illegal downloads and torrent sites to watch episodes of the Jon Favreau written and directed series that will see a new episode of The Mandalorian made available weekly, along with an avalanche of new and original Disney and Marvel content specifically produced for Disney+.
Disney+ as a new video streaming service despite any marketing or publicity in South Africa already enjoys a large awareness under South Africans viewers and consumers.
Disney+ was the number one topic of discussion and elicited the most questions from the media - with no answers about when it's coming to South Africa - at Disney's annual Disney Africa 2019/2020 content showcase that was held on Tuesday in Cape Town.
If or when Disney+ is to launch in South Africa, it will compete with MultiChoice's Showmax from its Connected Video division, as well as Netflix South Africa, Amazon Prime Video and Cell C black along with some smaller services all trying to grow their SVOD customer market share.
The Mandalorian will bring backstory and new characters to flesh out the time period and events that transpired 7 years after the Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi film just after the fall of the Empire and the rise of the First Order and 23 years before the events of The Force Awakens, with executive producer Jon Favreau already busy writing the scripts for the second season.
"I came in and pitched Kathleen Kennedy a version of a show that took place after Return of the Jedi," Jon Favreau said on the D23 stage. "Chaos reigns because there's no central government. It's a world like the old Samurai movies and Westerns."
The Mandalorian follows the adventures of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic, send on a mission to collect and retrieve something of great value.
Besides Pedro Pascal as the title character the series has Nick Nolte, Werner Herzog, Gina Carano (as Cara Dune), Giancarlo Esposito (Mof Gideon), Emily Swallow, Carl Weathers (as Greef Carga), Omid Abtahi, Taika Waititi (the droid IG-11) in the cast.
The Black Panther composer and recent Oscar and Grammy winner Ludwig Göransson is responsible for the musical score of the 10-episode first season that has a reported budget of over $100 million.
Obi-Wan Kenobi series
At D23 the Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy who is producing the new Obi-Wan Kenobi Star Wars drama series as well, told the crowd that "We have all the scripts written, we're ready to start shooting next year".
The as-yet-untitled Obi-Wan Kenobi series will be the third live-action Star Wars drama series made for Disney+.
Beyond The Mandalorian with Pedro Pascal, Disney also commissioned a series based on the Cassian Andor character character with Diego Luna back to reprise the role he played in the Star Wars Rogue One film, and with the show that will be a prequel series.
The hugely popular Star Wars: The Clone Wars animation series is also returning for a new season, this time to Disney+ that will become available from February 2020.
