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The rumors were true. All of them. Don’t expect The Mandalorian season 4 any time soon. Instead, we’re getting The Mandalorian & Grogu, a feature-length film to be directed by series creator Jon Favreau and that will be released in theaters. While Deadline reports that a fourth season of the series is “also in development,” the movie is being fast-tracked into production this year, according to a press release, which makes it unlikely we’ll see more of the show any time soon.
What this new film chapter may entail for the heroes is anyone’s guess, as Mando and Grogu seemed to finally settle down in a hut on Nevarro at the end of season 3. Have Grand Admiral Thrawn’s return and new problems on Mandalore forced the bounty hunter and his adopted Jedi son out of retirement? Lucasfilm ain’t saying just yet.
What the studio did make clear is that this is a separate project from the New Republic movie Star Wars chief creative officer and The Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni is developing. That means Lucasfilm now has four Star Wars films on its slate, also including the Rey movie to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and the Jedi origin film that will be helmed by James Mangold, although none have set release dates at this time.
Hidden away at the very end of the press release is confirmation that Filoni is also working on Ahsoka season 2. That’s no accident. After all, without a new season of The Mandalorian coming any time soon, Disney has a big gap to fill on its streaming service. The Mandalorian is not only the most-watched streaming original on Disney+ but it has also been up to this point the driving force of Star Wars storytelling post-Sequel Trilogy, setting up several spinoff shows and the New Republic era as a whole. Disney will now look to Ahsoka to carry that torch on the streaming service. In terms of the overall narrative of Star Wars, that transition has already happened.
It’s no secret that, while Lucasfilm is exploring other eras of Star Wars through series like Andor and The Acolyte, the New Republic era is now clearly meant to be the “main” storytelling setting of the galaxy far, far away, with four TV series (including the upcoming Skeleton Crew) and two movies set during the time period. Until the release of Ahsoka last year, The Mandalorian was the best way to keep up with that narrative. Beyond exploring the relationship between Din and his little guy Grogu, The Mandalorian was the flagship series that gave us glimpses into what was going on in other parts of the galaxy, including Coruscant, Mandalore, Tatooine, and even Luke Skywalker’s fledgling Jedi academy. It also set up the return of the Empire, a thread Ahsoka later followed more directly through its re-introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
In fact, it’s the latter show that felt the most consequential to the larger New Republic narrative last year. While The Mandalorian focused more closely on the conflicts unfolding on Mandalore specifically, with one quick detour to Coruscant, Ahsoka worked to set up the next big story beat of the Star Wars galaxy, with Thrawn and his spooky Imperial forces now on their way to strike back at their enemies. It’s this impending conflict that will not only drive Ahsoka season 2 but undoubtedly influence both The Mandalorian & Grogu and Filoni’s movie, which will “close out the interconnected stories” told across The Mandalorian and its Disney+ spinoffs.
With Filoni overseeing all these different projects and also continuing to helm Ahsoka, it’s now looking like season 2 of the Jedi adventure series is the most important chapter of Star Wars coming up on Disney+ if you want to not only keep up with the New Republic story but also be all caught up in time for two of the upcoming movies. But if shared universe storytelling isn’t your thing, you still have a few non-Mandoverse shows like The Acolyte and The Bad Batch season 3 to look forward to. Alas, we’ll have to wait until 2025 to get Andor back.
No release date has been set for Ahsoka season 2.
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