Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Series Writer Confirms Director Originally Attached to Spinoff Film

The future of the Star Wars galaxy is set to launch with the debut of the Disney+ streaming service, with the first live-action series The Mandalorian kicking off next week. But there's also planned shows including the Rogue One prequel series featuring Cassian Andor K-2SO, as well as the long awaited return of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi in an as of yet untitled show. The Kenobi series was only just announced, but it has already generated a ton of buzz among fans of the Star Wars franchise.

Series writer Hossein Amini spoke with Discussing Film about the upcoming series, revealing that Lucasfilm did have plans to make a movie at first with Stephen Daughtry before eventually switching gear.

"I was initially contacted by the original director for the film version, Stephen Daldry and chatted with him and loved him as a director and then with Lucasfilm, it was more of a conversation than a pitch, I am incredibly gracious about it. They didn't make it feel like an audition," Amini explained.

The writer also added that he spoke with Lucasfilm about the transition from film to TV series, adding that there were major changes to make it fit in the context of a 6-episode series.

"I think because of what we were speaking about before, the situation is so complex both for him personally and in a way, the state of the galaxy, you sort of need time to explore it and to be honest there are loads of other stories within that period as well, it's quite a few years," Amini said. "There is so much going on between episode 3 and 4 that hasn't been explored. The idea of being able to go into a character journey plus the politics and plus all the vastness of the empire and what's going on is exciting just because it feels like a proper period of history and sometimes that is hard to do in two hours. Sometimes with two-hour movies there is always an imperative for the action and the plot to move particularly fast and quickly and to go from action sequence to action sequence and there are many more aspects to storytelling that I find interesting."

There's no word yet on when Obi-Wan Kenobi series will premiere, but it sounds like Lucasfilm is making sure they have a worthy successor to the prequel series.