Disney Star Wars TV is drifting around rather nebulously at present, but it may take a big swing at something different if a new report is to be believed.
This is from insider Daniel Richtman, where he says “Lucasfilm’s developing a show set during Knight of the Old Republic era.” This echoes something Kathleen Kennedy said back in 2019 acknowledging that something was happening with KOTOR, but we haven’t had any real specifics since then. Now I guess we have…a report of a TV show, at least.
As I said, Disney Star Wars TV is in a weird place. To recap:
- The Mandalorian is apparently about to end with the first actual Star Wars movie since 2019’s Rise of Skywalker.
- Ahsoka is getting a season 2 but it is likely a full three years after season 1.
- Andor is returning for season 2 this year but that’s a hard ending.
- There’s nothing in the works regarding new episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi or The Book of Boba Fett.
- The Acolyte was cancelled without getting a season 2.
- Skeleton Crew is still ongoing and has received a lot of praise, but viewership appears low and it still has a $136 million budget. It’s unclear if it’s performing well enough to return.
A Knights of the Old Republic show may be able to bridge a gap between A) Disney needing to get out of the Skywalker era more and B) something that has more roots in Star Wars history and lore than the recently-created High Republic, the setting of The Acolyte.
When you say Knights of the Old Republic to a long-term Star Wars fans, it’s a series of video games that come to mind, KOTOR 1 and 2 and eventually, The Old Republic MMO. The KOTOR games in particular are beloved by gamer fans, but there’s nothing here that indicates this would be a direct adaptation of those, simply something set in that time period. And of course there are a lot of things that happen in that time period. Mainly, it would be the only time we’ve seen in Star Wars cinematic history where the Sith are running rampant rather than there just being a couple at a time.
But how large scale for TV, exactly? Disney’s budgeting has been an absolute mess for these series, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on projects that often do not garner the viewership to seem remotely worth that. A show like The Acolyte might have survived for a second season if it simply did not cost over $200 million for reasons that were not exactly evident onscreen.
A KOTOR series sounds better than most other ideas, I suppose. Then again in terms of quality, the best Disney Star Wars TV projects have been much more unexpected like Andor and Skeleton Crew.
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