Disney+ has had a huge success that has only been amplified by the pandemic that’s forcing us all to spend more time at home indoors. So understandably they are planning lots of original content to keep people interested.
There are a number of Marvel Studios series coming and even more rumoured to be in the works. But what about everything else? What other series have Disney got planned? Most of them are Star Wars projects so I’ll start with one that isn’t.
Confirmed: Percy Jackson
Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians YA book series, and his wife Becky took to Twitter on May 14, 2020, to announce that the series was getting another live-action adaptation.
20th Century Fox first attempted to bring the demi-god to the big screen in 2010 with Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and again in 2013 with the film’s followup Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters. The films starred Logan Lerman as the titular character, Percy Jackson with Alexandra Daddario as Annabeth Chase and Brandon T. Jackson as Grover Underwood.
The films took a lot of flak from fans of the books for their deviations from the source material. Riordan, knowing this, has promised that the Disney+ series will be much more faithful to the source material. The first series is said to be an adaptation of the first book in the series which is The Lightning Thief.
Percy Jackson is the half Olympian son of Poseidon and mortal Sally Jackson. Upon finding out about his abilities he goes to Camp Half-Blood to train with his fellow demigods. The Lightning Thief deals with Percy coming to terms with the revelation of his parentage and solving the mystery of Zeus’ stolen Master Bolt.
There’s currently no word on when production will start, or any other details other than Rick and Becky being involved. However, Riordan did hint that there will be news coming in the future.
Confirmed: The Mandalorian Season 2
After the success of Jon Favreau’s Mandalorian, it was a no brainer that a second season was going to be greenlit and is already underway. It’s set to be even bigger than the first season and fans of a galaxy far, far away (and The Child) will get their much needed fix when the show airs (hopefully) in October 2020.
All kinds of information is being released about the series as the cast list steadily grows. One of the first things to be announced was that Rosario Dawson was set to appear as Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan Ahsoka Tano (More on her later).
Next Temuera Morrison was revealed to have joined the cast as Boba Fett (again I’ll come back to him later). On top of that there are rumours that Morrison will be pulling double duty and portraying Captain Rex also.
For those that don’t know, Morrison portrayed Jango Fett in Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones where he was the basis for the clone army – Captain Rex is one of those clones. Boba Fett is a clone that Jango Fett raised as his “son”, so having Morrison portray both characters makes a lot of sense. Rex was voiced by Dee Bradley Baker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels.
Katee Sackhoff was announced to be reprising her role as Bo-Katan Kryze, the former ruler of Mandalore. Sackhoff voiced the character in the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels.
Timothy Olyphant was the latest cast member to be announced. /Film have reported that he will be playing Cobb Vanth, self-appointed sheriff of Tattooine based settlement Freetown.
Interestingly, it has been said that he will be wearing Boba Fett’s armour. Something I’m sure Boba Fett won’t be pleased about. Vanth is new to the series but not new to the universe having been introduced in the Expanded Universe in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath series of novels.
These new cast members join returning cast Pedro Pascal (Din Djarin/The Mandalorian), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), Carl Weathers (Greef Carga), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon) and breakout star of the first series “The Child”.
Rumoured: Ahsoka Tano
Ahsoka is a fan favourite character voiced by Ashley Eckstein. She appeared in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels and had a voice cameo in The Rise of Skywalker.
As detailed above, Tano is due to appear in a guest role in the second season of The Mandalorian portrayed by Rosario Dawson. The rumours are that this isn’t a one and done appearance though. Ahsoka’s appearance will apparently lead into her own live-action series.
The Direct reported that Dawson’s contract was a multi-show deal which falls in line with this rumour. There’s also reports from Variety that a female-led Star Wars series is in the works from Netflix’s Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland. Headland will be writer and showrunner for the new Star Wars show, which if the rumours are true will be based on Darth Vader’s former Padawan.
Confirmed: Cassian Andor
Cassian Andor was first introduced in Rogue One, the film set just before the start of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. The Cassian Andor series is a prequel to Rogue One centred on Diego Luna’s titular character.
Said to be a spy thriller, Tony Gilroy, who directed reshoots for Rogue One, has taken over as showrunner from Stephen Schiff. He will also write and direct some of the episodes. However, Schiff remains as a writer. He is joined by Dan Gilroy, Tony’s brother, and Beau Willimon, former House of Cards showrunner.
The cast consists of Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, Alan Tudyk and Genevieve O’Reilly reprising their roles as K-2SO and Mon Mothma and newcomers to Star Wars Stellan Skarsgard, Kyle Soller and Denise Gough.
Meanwhile, rumours are circulating that Jimmy Smits and Alistair Petrie are going to reprise their roles of Bail Organa (Princess Leia’s adoptive father) and Davits Draven. Both characters appearing would make sense as they worked with the Resistance and Mon Mothma.
The series is currently due to air sometime in 2021 but that could change.
Rumoured: Boba Fett
Since Temuera Morrison was announced to be portraying Boba Fett in series 2 of The Mandalorian, rumours have begun circulating that he will get his own series following his return in the popular Disney+ series.
FandomWire delivered an ‘exclusive scoop’, stating that a Boba Fett Disney+ project was in development at Disney. They said that it’s currently unknown if its a movie or a TV show, it could be either.
This is not the first time there has been whispers about a Boba Fett project. From 2013 and perhaps even earlier, there have been rumours flying around about a Boba Fett project being in the works.
Simon Kinberg was attached as a writer at first with Josh Trank joining to direct in 2014. A year later, Trank departed the project due to creative differences.
All was quiet until 2018 when James Mangold was announced to be directing and writing with Kinberg as co-writer and producer. By October of 2018, the project was once again deemed dead with Disney moving forwards instead with The Mandalorian.
Fans of the character are thrilled that Fett is making a comeback and will be ecstatic if he gets his own spotlight in a solo project.
Confirmed: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Obi-Wan Kenobi was introduced to audiences in 1977’s Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope portrayed by Alec Guinness. A mysterious Jedi Master, Obi-Wan’s history was explored in the prequel trilogy where Ewan McGregor portrayed him and animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels with James Arnold Taylor and Stephen Stanton voicing him.
The production has had some bumps along the way with original showrunner Hossein Amini exiting over creative differences in January 2020. Joby Harold took over writing duties and is currently reworking all of the scripts. Deborah Chow is set to direct all of the episodes.
Production was due to begin in 2020 but due to Amini leaving and the current global situation production has been delayed until 2021 and the release date has been pushed back to 2022.
The series is set to see Ewan McGregor return to the role of Obi-Wan and is set 8 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith when Order 66 was carried out.
Recent rumours suggest we might see Hayden Christensen reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the series. It has also been said that Rosario Dawson will appear once more as Ahsoka Tano. This wouldn’t be unusual for her to appear considering she knows Obi-Wan from the Clone Wars. Other details are currently under wraps.
Other projects said to be in the works for Disney+ are series based on National Treasure (rumoured to be the same concept as the movies but with a younger cast), Home Alone, Night at the Museum, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Cheaper by the Dozen (which may have recently cast Regina Hall).
Which of these projects are you looking forward to? Are there any projects you think should be made that are missing? Are there any Fox properties that Disney now owns that you would like to see adapted, continued or rebooted into a Disney+ series?
