Longtime Lucasfilm veteran Matthew Wood, who gave General Grievous his throaty and distorted voice in Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith and The Clone Wars animated series, says overwhelmingly positive fan response to the recently-announced Clone Wars revival is “really exciting.”
Videos by ComicBook.com
“I love working on Star Wars, I’ve been doing it a long time now — this week it’ll be 28 years. Dave Filoni was one of the best things that ever happened to Lucasfilm, and I’m very happy that he’s able and has a lot of the original crew back to come and tell more Clone Wars stories. That for us is really exciting,” Wood told Red Carpet News TV.
Star Wars creator and original series executive producer George Lucas initially greenlit a limited-run series, but The Clone Wars proved so popular it found renewed life long before Disney resurrected the fan-favorite animated series for its upcoming subscription-based streaming service.
“When we worked on Clone Wars originally, George was like, ‘Let’s do six episodes and see where we’re at.’ And at that point, we just kept going. We did a hundred-plus episodes because everyone loved it so much,” Wood said.
“And having [supervising director] Dave Filoni spearhead this, along with the fans’ interest that’s been going for 10 years, it feels great. I saw the reaction at San Diego Comic-Con last week, and it brought tears to my eyes just to see how excited people were for that. We were a little show on Cartoon Network when it came out, and I think the fact the show’s been streaming so much and people have seen it a lot, and people that saw that show are older now, everyone really just has a soft spot for it. So seeing it come back is really exciting.”
Filoni, fresh off a four-season run of Star Wars Rebels, previously told StarWars.com the comeback is “very rewarding.”
“Any opportunity to put the final pieces of the story in place is meaningful as a storyteller. I’m happy for the opportunity to define these things and the end of this part of the Clone War,” Filoni said.
“It also makes me reflect on all the people that I got to work with over the years. It reinforces the things I learned from George. It reminds me of the important elements that go into making Star Wars. So, it’s nice on several levels, and I think for the crew that’s still here that worked on Clone Wars, they feel that, as well.”
The Star Wars: The Clone Wars revival will premiere on the Disney streaming service, now being readied for 2019.