The Mandalorian Creator Teases MCU-Style Star Wars Story

Star Wars is no longer a galaxy — it's a cinematic universe. In 2020, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced two new series spinning out of The Mandalorian: Ahsoka and the since-scrapped Rangers of the New Republic, which has been replaced with Skeleton Crew. In the way that The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett were intertwined, with characters and storylines from one series crossing over and continuing into the other, Kennedy said the interconnected shows set within the timeline of The Mandalorian would culminate in a "climactic story event" on Disney+.

In a new interview with France's BFM TV ahead of the March 1st premiere of season 3 of The Mandalorian, series creator and showrunner Jon Favreau said he's already written season 4 of the flagship show that will feed into a larger Star Wars story across the Mando-Verse.

"We have to know where we're going to tell a fully-formed story. We had mapped it out, Dave [Filoni] and I, and then slowly, you just write each episode. Because all of it has to feel like a continuation and one full story," Favreau explained. "Then he's doing Ahsoka, which I'm producing with him, but he's the writer-showrunner on that. And so to understand what's happening on other shows, or even Skeleton Crew, all take place in the same Star Wars time period." (That period is the post-Return of the Jedi era of The New Republic.)

Favreau added: "There's a lot more things that we have to keep in mind and stuff that we've built up to in previous seasons of The Mandalorian, as well."

As the Star Wars universe continues to expand across canon comic books and television series set within the same continuity as the episodic movie saga, the launch of Disney+ made it so that The Mandalorian's serialized storytelling could introduce — or re-introduce — characters and storylines that would spin off and continue outside of the flagship. 

"I wanted to really pare it down to a few characters [and tell] a personal story set in that world... and also [use it as an] opportunity to bring new people in who might not be up on the lore," Favreau said of The Mandalorian during a panel at Star Wars Celebration 2022. "This became an entry ramp. As we've introduced characters that existed before, thanks to the Disney+ streaming service, they could go and watch everything." 

Lucasfilm describes season 3 of The Mandalorian: "The journeys of the Mandalorian through the Star Wars galaxy continue. Once a lone bounty hunter, Din Djarin has reunited with Grogu. Meanwhile, the New Republic struggles to lead the galaxy away from its dark history. The Mandalorian will cross paths with old allies and make new enemies as he and Grogu continue their journey together."

Starring Pedro Pascal, Katee Sackhoff, Carl Weathers, Amy Sedaris, Emily Swallow and Giancarlo Esposito, Star Wars: The Mandalorian season 3 is streaming March 1st on Disney+.