Disney purchased all of Lucasfilm back in 2012 for more than $4 billion and so far, they have been turning that into a very good investment. They are making a lot of Star Wars movies (which are raking in the box office dollars) and other media such as comic books and video games. But long before Disney ever stepped in, there were talks of a live-action Star Wars TV show of some kind. So where are they with that? Well, it looks like it might still happen, but definitely not anytime soon. At least not on ABC.
ABC’s President Channing Dungey recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the potential for the network to develop a live-action Star Wars TV show, something we have heard a lot about in recent years, but nothing concrete. While he wouldn’t put the idea to bed completely, it sounds like ABC is a very long way off from actually bringing a galaxy far, far away to a TV near you. Here is what he had to say about it.
“That was sort of a conversation at TCA that got blown way out of proportion. We have had some conversations in general about wanting to find a way to bring something from the Lucas Star Wars Universe to ABC, but that’s far into the future. The focus at the moment for Lucas is on the current stuff that they’re doing on the film side and then, of course, they do have the stuff that they are doing on XD.”
The only Star Wars show Disney has brought to the table in the time since Lucasfilm was purchased has been Star Wars Rebels, which as Channing Dungey notes, is on Disney XD. That show has more and more become essential viewing for Star Wars fans, especially since there were a ton of references to it made in Rouge One: A Star Wars Story. Still, as good as Star Wars Rebels is, nothing can really compare to the idea of having a live-action Star Wars TV show at some point. One would imagine it is an inevitability, but it might frustrate fans to think it is such a long way off.
In the days before anyone knew that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was going to be a thing and when George Lucas was still in control, there were plans for a live-action Star Wars show, supposedly titled Star Wars: Underworld. Little is known about the show specifically, but it would have taken place prior to the events of the original Star Wars trilogy. The show was so far along that Lucas had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 scripts commissioned, which are probably sitting in a vault somewhere at Disney or Skywalker Ranch. So there is always a chance Disney could dust those off and make use of them. The show ultimately got scrapped in 2008 due to budget constraints, which makes sense. Making anything Star Wars related isn’t cheap.
ABC seems like a very logical place for Disney and Lucasfilm to eventually place a live-action Star Wars TV show in the future, since Disney owns the network. With that said, that isn’t the only place it could happen. They also have a good relationship with Netflix and there have even been rumors that The Mouse House is looking to buy the streaming giant, so perhaps that would be a good place to do a Star Wars series of some kind. It would certainly make fans happy to be able to binge it instead of going week-to-week. In any case, that is all speculative and at least for now, we are going to have to be happy with a new Star wars movie every year and all of the other content in the Star Wars expanded universe. Let’s be honest, it is still a pretty good time to be a Star Wars fan.