Star Wars: The Acolyte Showrunner Teases Series’ Martial-Arts Influences

When The Acolyte begins filming later this year, it will be the first Star Wars live-action television series set outside of the Skywalker Saga. Though Lucasfilm is keeping most details under lock and key, showrunner Leslye Headland says it’ll take fans back to the basics of the original Star Wars trilogy. While it’ll follow in the footsteps with what Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have done with the franchise’s other shows on Disney+, the “mystery” series will largely be inspired by the samurai and martial arts films that inspired George Lucas in the first place.

“Jon Favreau said that when you’re working in this world, you want to go back to what George was inspired by. There were Westerns and then of course, Akira Kurosawa samurai films, and the fact that he originally offered Obi-Wan Kenobi to Toshiro Mifune,” Headland said in a wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair.

Because of that, Headland said she wanted to keep things smaller and “more personal.”

“So I actually went more toward martial arts films, and storylines that are a little bit more personal and less global and galactic,” the writer added. “Those warriors were on missions that were deeply personal, with people feeling wronged and having to make it right. Wuxia Films and martial arts films from King Hu and the Shaw Brothers, like Come Drink With Me and Touch Of Zen. They’re monks that are also martial arts heroes.”

In a separate piece from the same magazine, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy applauded Headland’s dedication to researching the franchise’s “Legends” lore, formerly known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

“She is a gigantic Star Wars fan,” the executive shared. “What’s wonderful about Leslye is she knows it all. I mean, she’s read a gazillion books inside the E.U. There are little bits and pieces that she’s drawing from that no one has explored yet in the onscreen storytelling.”

“The truth is that I, as a major mega fan, came to them with this idea. And I said, ‘I think the best place to put this is in an era you guys have not quite explored yet,’” Headland concluded. “They were very enthusiastic. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to explore that [existing] world, but I think that they already were because The Mandalorian and a lot of the other television projects were really relying on legacy characters.”

Stay tuned for details on Star Wars: The Acolyte.