The Mandalorian Visual Guide and Novel Officially Cancelled
The world of The Mandalorian is much bigger than just the live-action series on Disney+, with [...]
The world of The Mandalorian is much bigger than just the live-action series on Disney+, with Lucasfilm previously confirming that it would be releasing books that not only went behind the scenes of the adventure but also would chronicle new adventures for the main character, though DK Books and Del Rey announced today that they won't be moving forward with The Mandalorian Ultimate Visual Guide or the Mandalorian novel. Fans have been left to wonder why these projects may have been scrapped, given that they were announced last summer, with the only official explanations for the cancellations being quite vague.
DK Books first tweeted this morning, "Due to the ever-expanding world of The Mandalorian, we will no longer be publishing The Mandalorian Ultimate Visual Guide at this time, as the story continues to unfold on screen."
Moments later, Del Rey tweeted, "Due to the ever-expanding world of The Mandalorian, we will no longer be publishing THE MANDALORIAN ORIGINAL NOVEL at this time, as the story continues to unfold on screen."
Likely the only avenue in which these comments made sense is that there could be elements in either book that weren't initially planned to be included in the live-action series, only for the development of Season 3 of The Mandalorian to throw a wrench in the works. With the Ultimate Visual Guide diving into the making of the series, it's perplexing what could be contained within it that might cause the publisher to delay its release, yet it would seem much more plausible that whatever we would have seen in the novel could potentially be repurposed for one of the many upcoming live-action Star Wars series.
Understandably, one of the biggest shakeups for the galaxy far, far away in recent months was Lucasfilm announcing that Gina Carano would no longer be part of the franchise going forward, surely leaving some to speculate about if the cancellation of these books was somehow connected to that reveal. While the series surely won't be retroactively erasing Carano's Cara Dune from the program, it would be confounding as to why this would be the reason the Visual Guide would be cancelled, but with the studio yet to reveal the fate of the character, it's possible the events of the novel tied in more directly to the character's importance, or set the stage for her involvement in other live-action series.
Despite these conjectures, Gizmodo claims a source close to Disney Publishing cited scheduling issues for the cancellations and they had nothing to do with Cara Dune.
Stay tuned for details on the future of Star Wars publishing.
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