The ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ series will arrive on Disney+ on May 25. It will be then when we can see the expected return of Ewan McGregor like the Jedi Master of the title, but the truth is that at the time we had to cancel it. Shortly before the start of filming in 2020, Lucasfilm announced that its production was canceled indefinitely and until now we have not known the exact reason for it.
The change of scriptwriter
It is true that we had already had clues such as the signing of a new screenwriter, since initially it was Hossein Amini (‘Drive’) who was in charge of the series, being replaced at the last minute by Joby Harold (‘Army of the dead’). However, it is now that kathleen kennedypresident of Lucasfilm, has explained that change of direction at the last minute:
Ultimately, we seek to make a hopeful and uplifting story. And it’s hard when you start with a character in the state that Obi-Wan is in after ‘Revenge of the Sith.’ It’s a pretty dark period of time. You can’t wave a magic wand at just any writer and come up with a story that necessarily reflects what you want to feel.
Come on, Amini’s approach to the series was too dark for what Lucasfilm was looking for. That’s not to say it was gloomy or depressing, just that the production company was looking for something different, and that’s when they signed Harold, who comments on how he got the job:
It is a character that has always been a small obsession for me. When I found out that he was a character that they were exploring, I very aggressively told them all the things that I thought they should do.
As a result, the start of filming for ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ was ultimately delayed just a few months, moving from August 2020 to January 2021. The curious thing is that the return of Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader until Harold’s scripts should be ready or practically ready, would that be one of the changes that the series introduced?
By the way, Amini had initially been hired to write the ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ movie, but the box office flop of ‘Han Solo: A Star Wars Story’ led to Lucasfilm to rethink the future of the saga and give priority to the series, since it was also at that time when it was decided that Disney would launch its own streaming platform.