Disney Rumored To Be Casting For Star Wars TV Specials And Miniseries
This article is more than 2 years old
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t run across one Star Wars rumor or another. Most of them involve Episode VII, the flagship with which Disney will launch its revitalized Star Wars franchise with gusto. But Disney almost certainly has other Star Wars-related projects in the works that they haven’t announced yet, and now the latest rumor suggests that Disney’s recent casting calls aren’t just looking to assemble the next generation of big-screen Star Wars heroes and villains. They may also be lining up actors for future TV specials and miniseries set in that galaxy far, far away.
First off, this rumor comes via Cinelinx.com, a site whose track record I’m not familiar with, so this has to remain firmly in the “rumor” column until further info either supports or refutes it. Cineflix claims that their unnamed sources “were told the people holding the [Star Wars] auditions were casting for roles in as yet unannounced television projects including ‘specials and mini-series.’”
That claim does jibe with info from the Brand Licensing Show in London last year, where a brochure revealed that Disney was planning some sort of Darth Vader-related TV special for later this year. So it’s entirely possible that they are currently casting for that, or it could be for something else entirely. At this point we’re not even sure what the Vader special will involve: it could be an actual scripted Darth Vader story or it could be just a retrospective kind of thing, similar to what Marvel did this week with their Assembling a Universe special. But in spite of the Brand Licensing Show brochure spilling the beans, Disney still hasn’t officially confirmed anything.
One other possibility is the Star Wars: Underworld TV series has been in the works for ages now. And even if that particular show is DOA like a lot of pre-Disney Star Wars projects, I would be astonished if Disney doesn’t already have at least one new live-action SW series in some stage of development. Just look how aggressive the Marvel Studios wing of their empire has been, between ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and multiple shows in the works for Netflix. In fact, we already know that ABC has had discussions with the Star Wars folks about just that subject. Everybody’s all about shared, intermedia universes these days, so it seems to be a foregone conclusion that Star Wars’ invasion of the small screen will involve more than just the Rebels animated series. Hopefully it won’t be a remake of the Holiday Special.
