Disney releases first poster and trailer for its Star Wars drama series, The Mandalorian coming to Disney+ that South Africans won't be able to see legally.

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.

Star Wars reveals first details about its live-action drama series, The Mandalorian, for its Disney+ video streaming service and how real-life Stormtroopers used as on-call extras suddenly became an on-set test audience.

Lucasfilm and Disney gave the first look and more details about the upcoming first-ever live-action Star Wars drama series, The Mandalorian, written and directed by Jon Favreau for Disney's upcoming new Disney+ video streaming service with the showrunners who explained how hiring some cosplay Stormtroopers as on-call extras suddenly created an on-set test audience.

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 Mandalorian as 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".

Pedro Pascal chosen as the lead actor in Lucasfilm and Disney's Star Wars drama series, The Mandalorian.

Lucasfilm and Disney have chosen Pedro Pascal as the lead actor in its Star Wars live-action drama series, The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian is currently in production and filming for Disney's upcoming Disney+ video streaming service set to launch in late-2019.

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.

Variety first reported about Pedro Pascal.

The Mandalorian takes place after the events of Return of the Jedi and before the evil First Order rose to replace the evil Empire.

Disney described The Mandalorian as "the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic".

Earlier this week Disney announced a second live-action Star Wars drama series that it will produce, and that will revolve around the Rogue One Rebel spy character of Cassian Andor, with Diego Luna who who will be reprising his role.

Star Wars creator George Lucas visits the set of Disney's first live-action drama series, The Mandalorian.

Jon Favreau/Instagram

The creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, this week visited the set of Disney's first live-action Star Wars drama series, The Mandalorian, that is currently in production with writer and executive producer Jon Favreau.

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.

Lucasfilm adds Jon Favreau as writer and executive producer of Disney's first live-action Star Wars drama series.

Lucasfilm announced that it has added Jon Favreau as writer and executive producer of Disney's first live-action Star Wars drama series.

The as yet untitled Star Wars drama series that also 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 the 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, and how M-Net acquired the rights to both Netflix and Amazon series before those streamers made their debut in South Africa and Africa.

Walt Disney first revealed plans for a live-action Star Wars series in November 2017 and its streaming services is expected to launch in 2019 in the United States.

"I couldn’t be more excited about Jon coming on board to produce and write for the new direct-to-consumer platform," says Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm president, in a statement.

"Jon brings the perfect mix of producing and writing talent, combined with a fluency in the Star Wars universe. This series will allow Jon the chance to work with a diverse group of writers and directors and give Lucasfilm the opportunity to build a robust talent base."

Jon Favreau says "If you told me at 11 years old that I would be getting to tell stories in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn't have believed you. I can't wait to embark upon this exciting adventure".

The actor-director played roles in both the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series on the Cartoon Network and Disney XD in which he voiced the character of Pre Vizsla, and will appear in the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story film.

He is also an executive producer of the Iron Man and Avengers films for Marvel Studios.