There can be only Wan. It was confirmed at the start of Friday’s D23 event that, yes, Ewan McGregor is going to to reprise his role as the younger Obi-Wan Kenobi.
McGregor played the character (first made famous by Sir Alec Guinness in 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope) in the prequel films – The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002)and Revenge of the Sith (2005) – and there had been talk of a standalone movie about the character as part of the rebranding and expansion of the Star Wars universe. However with Solo‘s relative lack of box-office clout, such a plan stalled and in the last year or so, the galaxy far, far away seems to be heading for multiple television projects instead.
McGregor was a surprise guest at the event and as the Star Wars part of the evening drew to a close, he appeared on stage and asked the audience: “Ask me if I’m going to play Obi-Wan!”
Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy confirmed only a few details about the mini-series that will begin shooting in 2020, but noted: “We have all the scripts written, and we’re ready to go next year, we can’t wait to start production…”
While the prequel films got a mixed reaction on their release, McGregor was generally praised for his performance. More recently he appeared in the third season of Fargo and will soon appear on the big screen in Doctor Sleep (the sequel to The Shining) as the grown-up Dan Torrance and as the villain in the Birds of Prey movie set in the DC Universe. If the Obi-Wan series goes forward it will join two other live-action shows for the Disney + platform: The Mandalorian (due to debut in November and already confirmed for a second season and with a new trailer released today at the event as well) and a series centred around the Rogue One character of Cassian Andor (in production this year).
Disney+ itself will launch in November and is expected to take on the likes of Netflix and Hulu with a rollout of key Marvel Universe-related series as well as the Star Wars titles over the next two years.
