The surprise announcement this week of “The Mandalorian & Grogu” raised a ton of questions about the galaxy of Lucasfilm. Isn’t “The Mandalorian” a series? Wasn’t the Rey-leading “Star Wars” film from filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy meant to come first, and where do Dave Filoni’s various TV series and films fit into all of this? Additionally, given Bob Iger’s famous about-face quotes about Disney+ shows—namely the Marvel and Lucasfilm ones—“diluting” the brand, aka these subpar TV shows may have hurt the theatrical model and bottom line—won’t a TV series on Disney+ that audiences already enjoyed in the comfort of their own homes face a steep challenge making the leap to the big screen?
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Well, we have some answers thanks to the THR Heatvision newsletter. Well, first off, apparently Lucasfilm was intent on making a fourth season of “The Mandalorian” despite what they called “meh” third season (not wrong, frankly). In fact, all of the scripts for the season were done and written pre-strikes, but plans were eventually reevaluated, especially since Lucasfilm announced at Celebration in May that they were pivoting back to moves.
And it’s unclear if the season four scripts were mined for parts as a condensed movie or if a season four will even happen. One would think if ‘Mandalorian’ is a hit on the big screen, you would go to sequels instead of going back to streaming, but who knows at this point.
There are other films in the works from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, and Dave Filoni, the co-creator of “The Mandalorian” series, and they currently have two 2026 dates penciled in (summer and Christmas) and one 2027 date held too (Christmas).
But it doesn’t sound like Filoni’s movie—expected to be a culmination of stories that connected the Jon Favreau and Filoni-verse shows—is coming any time soon because a second “Ahsoka” season has to come first.Heatvision also notes that Favreau is not only directing the ‘Mando/Grogu’ feature but also writing the script with Filoni.
Either way, you’re looking at a scenario where “Ahsoka” season two probably doesn’t air until 2025 at the earliest—if not a year later, even “Andor” isn’t arriving until 2025— and then two-plus years from there for Filoni’s movie at the very earliest.
And James Mangold has a Bob Dylan movie to deal with first, so that’s two years from release, plus at least another two years to get a “Star Wars” movie made if he makes them back to back with no room for error.
So we’re likely looking at this:
5/22/26 Disney UNTITLED STAR WARS – probably the “The Mandalorian & Grogu” film.
12/18/26 Disney UNTITLED STAR WARS – Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Rey ‘Jedi Order’ Movie
12/17/27 Disney UNTITLED STAR WARS—a big fat TBD, unless “Ahsoka” is finished fast enough that Filoni can also turn around an entire big movie that’s supposed to be Mando/Ahsoka/and The Star Wars Rebel crew against Thrawn (probably titled, “Heir To The Empire” since Lucasfilm loves to be so obvious and telegraph their moves from miles away).