Star Wars Shows Adopting Marvel Formula for The Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Rangers of the New Republic

After shelving a series of Star Wars films due to the poor box office performance of Solo: A Star [...]

By Adam Barnhardt

After shelving a series of Star Wars films due to the poor box office performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm is having another go at fleshing out the sci-fi universe created by George Lucas over 40 years ago. Using The Mandalorian as a base, the Disney-owned studio has confirmed its first crossover event for Disney+, featuring the characters first introduced in the Pedro Pascal-starring show.

Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy took to Disney's Investor Day earlier this month to confirm at least two shows were in active development using the characters that first appeared in The Mando — a Rosario Dawson-starring Ahsoka series, and another titled Rangers of the New Republic, a batch of episodes that will likely feature an ensemble cast. After unveiling the two new shows, Kennedy made sure to mention they'll eventually crossover in an event series on Disney+, the ultimate franchise-building move. In fact, it's a strategy reminiscent of Marvel Studios, a sibling company to Lucasfilm.

Now, Variety confirms The Book of Boba Fett will be its own standalone show, adding yet another show that will eventually be added to the epic crossover event.

It's something most Star Wars fans have clamoring for since the outfit first announced it would develop projects outside of the immediate Skywalker Saga, elsewhere in the Star Wars world. Thanks to the critical success of The Mandalorian, it's given the powers that be enough to greenlight an expansive universe that will set the Star Wars world on the same track as the Marvel Cinematic Universe — which now has 23 feature films released, and dozens of properties still in development both for theaters and for Disney+.

"I learned a lot from my experience over at Marvel, where it was very organic, how it would evolve," Favreau told Variety in October. "You're paying attention to a larger story arcs and characters that could come together, but also smaller stories of individual characters that could go off [on their own thing]. The key here is keep maintaining the quality and never scaling to the point that we're losing sight of what's important to us and what people like about the show."

The best part of it all? It's being led by MCU alumnus Jon Favreau and his trrusty pal Dave Filoni.

Both seasons of The Mandalorian — plus nearly every MCU movie — is now streaming on Disney+.

What other Star Wars characters would you like to get their own shows? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

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