Star Wars: New Animated Series Rumored to Be Set in the High Republic

Shortly after the calendar flips to 2021, Star Wars: The High Republic will officially kick off with Charles Soule's The High Republic: Light of the Jedi. Though the efforts to explore the era were initially heralded as a massive publishing effort across prose and sequential storytelling, a new rumor that's made its rounds online suggests The High Republic will expand into a multimedia effort before too long. In a new report published by the scoopers at Cinelinx, the era will eventually be home to a new animated series from Lucasfilm.

As it stands now, the Kathleen Kennedy-led production house has revealed it only has Star Wars: The Bad Batch in active development, a show expected to release during the earlier parts of next year. The latest rumor, however, also suggests a third animated series could be in development outside Batch and the new High Republic series.

Longtime Lucasfilm animation boss Dave Filoni is executive producing The Bad Batch alongside Athena Portillo, Brad Rau, and Jennifer Corbett. Judging by Filoni's pedigree at the outfit, it's entirely likely he'll also be involved with the High Republic project as well should it come to fruition.

"Giving new and existing fans the final chapter of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been our honor at Disney+, and we are overjoyed by the global response to this landmark series," Disney+ content head Agnes Chu said in the Batch announcement. "While the Clone Wars may have come to its conclusion, our partnership with the groundbreaking storytellers and artists at Lucasfilm Animation is only beginning. We are thrilled to bring Dave Filoni's vision to life through the next adventures of the Bad Batch."

The High Republic is a previously unexplored era of the Star Wars mythos, set some 200 years prior to the events of The Phantom Menace. In this timeframe, the Sith are nothing but a myth as the Jedi reign supreme.

The working synopsis for The Bad Batch can be found below.

"The series follows the elite and experimental clones of the Bad Batch (first introduced in The Clone Wars) as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War. Members of Bad Batch – a unique squad of clones who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army -- each possess a singular exceptional skill which makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew. In the post-Clone War era, they will take on daring mercenary missions as they struggle to stay afloat and find new purpose."

The only Star Wars series currently airing is The Mandalorian, which releases its new episodes on Disney+ every Friday.

What other parts of the Star Wars universe would you like to see get the animation treatment? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!