Production has started on Disney+'s latest Star Wars series, Ahsoka, with Rosario Dawson reprising her role as seen in the other Disney+ Original, Star Wars: The Mandalorian.
The start of production was revealed through Star Wars' Twitter handle on social media, posting an image of the director's chair with the name Ahsoka printed on the back, and producer-director Dave Filoni's trademark black cowboy hat draped over the one side.
Hayden Christensen will be appearing in Ahsoka reprising his prequel role as Akshoka's former Jedi master Anakin Skywalker.
Hayden Christensen is also appearing as Darth Vader in the upcoming new Disney+ miniseries Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi launching on 27 May on Disney+ - with Disney+ launching in South Africa on 18 May just in time for South African viewers to watch the show without it getting ruined by spoilers.
The rest of the Ahsoka cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ray Stevenson.
The first season of Ahsoka will premiere on Disney+ in 2023.
At the Star Wars Celebration in Chicago during The Mandalorian panel discussion, Disney and Lucasfilm released 4 publicity photos and a 3-minute behind-the-scenes look of footage, featuring Pedro Pascal's Mandalorian warrior, Carl Weathers' Greef Carga as the head of a guild of bounty hunters, and Gina Carano's character of Cara Dune as a former Rebel Shock Trooper.
The Mandalorian is set after The Return of the Jedi and before The Force Awakens, in a period of extreme turmoil, political uncertainty and lawlessness in that "galaxy far, far away" with Dave Filoni who directs the first episode as co-executive producer together with Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy and Colin Wilson.
The Mandalorian will become available on Disney+ on 12 November when the new video streaming service launches in the United States and is set "5 years after the death of Darth Vader".
The protagonist makes use of a spaceship called Razor's Crest, described "a reflective silver old army gunship", and is a citizen of the underworld on the outer reaches of the galaxy - "a character you've never met before, a period of time you've never seen".
With Africa and South Africa not forming part of The Walt Disney Company's initial rollout of Disney+ and Disney's existing linear TV channels like Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service not appropriate for the show, it's highly likely that many Star Wars fans will be "sailing the high seas", meaning downloading and sharing illegal copies of The Mandalorian series from November.
That is unless Disney possibly sells content like The Mandalorian through its international TV distribution division in the way it has been doing with series produced by its Disney Television Studios, ABC Studios or 20th Century Fox Television (all now owned by Disney).
While the 3-minute footage of the show is blacked out from the live-stream feed, the rest of the fascinating panel discussion can be seen on YouTube in which Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni discuss the origin of The Mandalorianas well as its setting and time frame.
The Mandalorian is described as having a tone of old "gunslinger Westerns", mixed with Star Wars' science fiction elements.
"Fantasy fulfilment that's what's like," said Pedro Pascal about the role. "I don't know what I can and can't say. The Mandalorian is a mysterious lone gunfighter on the outer reaches of the galaxy. Some would say he has low moral character - he's badass."
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni shared a funny, fascinating story about how they didn't have enough Stormtroopers and put out a call to recruit cosplay members of the 501st Legion to help portray Stormtroopers in The Mandalorian.
"So we're making the show and we're starting to bring in some vestigates of the Empire. And we had done some planning and there was a scene where we needed Stormtroopers," said Jon Favreau.
"We had our production meeting and after seeing the set we realised we didn't have enough stormtroopers to make the impact. There were only so many Stormtrooper uniforms we had and we were concerned that it was not going to do the trick for the storytelling."
"So we hatched a plan. Has the 501st Legion actually ever been on camera?" asked Jon Favreau.
Dave Filoni continued and said "we put a call out and said we need a bunch of Stormtroopers. And they came down, out of nowhere. The thing that you know about Star Wars fans is that, in all honestly, a lot of the costumes they made are even better than what's used on-screen at certain points."
"So I had no worry that it would hold up and it sure held up. And as much as their armour is accurate - they look like stormtroopers - they act like Stormtroopers. They know what to do."
Jon Favreau said "What was so funny was how surprised some of them looked because I didn't realise that they weren't told what it was for."
Dave Filoni said "And then we realised too everything that we rolled out in front of them was almost a test audience. And we would sit there as something would roll out and go 'Ooh, they seemed to like that'. So that was fascinating".
With Disney+ at this point likely only for the United States, it stands to reason that The Mandalorian will likely be distributed and sold internationally to broadcasters and streaming services with a good chance that it could end up on M-Net (DStv 101) or Showmax for South African and African viewers.
Jon Favreau is the writer and executive producer of The Mandalorian, with Dave Filoni who will be directing the first episde.
Filming recently started on The Mandalorian which is basically set after the film Return of the Jedi.
The Star Wars drama series that so far has no broadcasting date, will be produced for Disney's to-be-launched streaming service in America, but will likely be available through foreign distribution from The Walt Disney Company for international broadcasters.
It means that Lucasfilm's Star Wars series might become available to broadcaster's like M-Net for possible pick-up in countries where Disney's streaming service won't have a presence, in the way that Netflix picked up Star Trek: Discovery from CBS All Access for outside the United States.
This week George Lucas surprised the crew of The Mandalorian with a set visit, revealed by Jon Favreau who posted some images on his social media Instagram account. "Birthday Surprise," wrote Jon Favreau who celebrated his 52nd birthday.
Jon Favreau and George Lucas took the photos inside what looks like some kind of bar or cantina, with a photo including Dave Filoni who oversees all of Lucasfilm Animation projects, and who is the director of the first episode of The Mandalorian.
No casting has yet been announced for The Mandalorian.
The Force is strong with this one: Like out of carbonite, Lucasfilm and Disney are reviving the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars that was abruptly cancelled in 2013, with creator and writer-director Dave Filoni stunning the audience at Comic-Con 2018 in San Diego with the announcement that the show will return. Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be back in 2019 with 12 new episodes that will become available on Disney's new as yet unnamed video-on-demand streaming service. "It's an anniversary - it's 10 years," Dave Filoni told the audience who waited with breathless anticipation as he continued: "And you guys deserve something for being so great - a present, if you will. We got together and thought, 'If there is one thing we could give you, what would it be?'"
His announcement at the panel discussion about the show's 10th anniversary was met by standing applause.
The beloved animation series that won several Emmy Awards came to an abrupt end after 5 seasons on Turner's Cartoon Network after it started in 2008.
It will now seamlessly resume where the unresolved storylines left off with the same characters like Ahsoka Tano, Captain Rex, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the same voice actors and at the same time period in that galaxy far, far away, set between the period of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
"I honestly didn't think we would ever have the opportunity to return to The Clone Wars," said Dave Filoni. "Thanks to the relentless fan support and the team behind Disney's direct-to-consumer streaming service, we will now get to tell more of those stories. We feel a tremendous responsibility to make something that lives up to the legacy that George Lucas created with the original series, and I think our team, many of whom worked on the show from the beginning, has risen to the challenge." A new Star Wars: The Clone Wars teaser trailer was released at Comic-Con. The teaser trailer starts with various members of the Clone army talking and then text saying: "A war left unfinished ... until now." At the end of the trailer Ahsoka Tano, the then-padawan learner of Jedi Anakin Skywalker appears. She says to him through a hologram: "Hello master, it's been awhile."
Star Wars Rebels on Disney XD (DStv 304) has been cancelled, with the upcoming 4th season that will be the animation show's last.
Star Wars Rebels executive producer Dave Filoni made the announcement of the cancellation of Star Wars Rebels at this past weekend's Star Wars 40th Anniversary Celebration in Orlando Florida.
He hinted at a return of the character Ahsoka Tano whose fate was left unshown following the second season finale cliffhanger in which Ahsoka Tano faced off with Darth Vader.
After Disney was reluctant to give Star Wars Rebels a 4th season with only a muted announcement last month that it was actually renewed, Dave Filoni said it's better to end a show when you can end it on your terms, alluding to the shock cancellation of his previous animation show Star Wars The Clone Wars that had several stories and episodes in development that were never finished.
"I firmly believe that each generation needs to have their own piece of Star Wars, and this show, for a lot of kids growing up with it, is as much a piece of Star Wars as any of the movies," said Dave Filoni.
The final 15 episodes of Star Wars Rebels "will be darker in tone, with a Rogue One aesthetic," said Dave Filoni.
"As we enter into an exciting new era focused on the next Star Wars trilogy, Lucasfilm has decided to pursue a new direction in animated programming. We are exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming. You can expect more details in the months to come," says Lucasfilm on its website.
"As part of this shift, we have also made some key decisions affecting Star Wars: The Clone Wars. After five highly successful and critically acclaimed seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we feel the time has come to wind down the series."
"While the studio is no longer producing new episodes for The Cartoon Network, we're continuing production on new Clone Wars story arcs that promise to be some of the most thrilling adventures ever seen."
Lucafilm says this "bonus content" of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be released elsewhere but does not yet specify details (it definitely won't be on Turner Broadcasting System's The Cartoon Network).
The planned new animation Star Wars show, Star Wars Detours is now also being shelved and postponed, because the decision to launch that new show was made before George Lucas decided to go ahead with a new film trilogy.
"Detours was conceived and produced before we decided to move forward with the new Star Warstrilogy, and in the wake of that decision, Lucasfilm has reconsidered whether launching an animated comedy prior to the launch of Episode VII makes sense. As a result, we've decided to postpone the release of Detours until a later date."
In an online video on the site, Dave Filoni, the supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars teases with an amazing as-yet-unseen clip from the show.
"It's not over yet. In fact, the best is yet to come," says Dave Filoni in the clip. "We have some of the most exciting, some of the most important story arcs still coming your way. Now what could there be left to tell? Well, as die-hard fans of the series, you know there is still some gaps in there - things that are really crucial to the overall story arc of the Star Wars universe that we need to finish off and tell you."
"They are the best episodes that my crew has ever committed to screen," says Dave Filoni.and then fans can start to see a sneak peek of new (and thrilling!) Star Wars: The Clone Wars material.
