Dave Filoni (The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) is moving from the small screen to the big screen. The Book of Boba Fett director is set to helm a New Republic-era movie that will be the ‘culminating event’ for the Mandoverse.
In an interview with IGN, Filoni reveals that this theatrical move has been a long time coming.
“I think the story just escalated to the point where Jon [Favreau] and I were talking about it and we’ve had a plan for a while,” Filoni said when asked why he wanted to make a film. “It just seems like the next logical step. The story also I think is, like I said, grown to a point that we want to expand a bit and do a little bit of a bigger thing than we’ve been doing on our streaming shows.”
The Mandalorian producer Jon Favreau echoes the sentiment that the growth of the Mandoverse with each new show and season points it to the big screen.
“We knew the story would culminate. You have little culminations that come with each season. You have characters and things that thread in and out,” he told IGN.
“Those characters and these storylines start to demand that you’re starting to deal with larger forces and bigger trends within that time period. So at a certain point the rubber is going to hit the road in many ways.”
Favreau also credits the audience’s open-mindedness towards stories progressing over different mediums as a factor.
“And the fact that now audiences will accept a permeability between media, which I think has been, as you see with the Star Wars films and with the Marvel films, there’s a lot of… Audiences are very sophisticated now, and if they’re invested in the characters and the stories, you can tell types of stories in one medium that you can’t with the other.”
When asked if the movie will act as a grand finale to The Mandalorian, Filoni’s answer is well complicated as the director sees the film set as a more ‘New Republic period’ and less ‘Mandalorian era’.
“I don’t know if I’d call it [a finale]. I think of the time period now as the New Republic time period, and it’s something that has existed long before we were ever making The Mandalorian. The idea that after Return of the Jedi there was a New Republic, and that the heroes still had to defend that Republic from the remnant Empire is a very old idea that we brought into the first season of The Mandalorian. Because it’s what was always there.”
Another teaser dropped during the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase at Star Wars Celebration 2023 is that fans of the Mandoverse can look forward to their favourite characters appearing outside of their shows. According to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, such crossovers will act as a build-up to the new movie.
“Well, that’s really building toward what Dave’s doing in the feature space. Very intentionally.”
The release date for Filoni’s epic crossover movie has not been revealed though his other small-screen works have been given their debut dates– such as Ahsoka premiering on Disney+ in August.
Other announcements made at the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase include the unveiling of Ahsoka teaser trailer and Daisey Ridley’s return as Rey.
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