Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV series)

Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the development of several Star Wars standalone spin-off films in February 2013.[19] Obi-Wan Kenobi was the overwhelming winner of a poll by The Hollywood Reporter in August 2016 that asked which Star Wars character deserved a spin-off film.[20] Ewan McGregor, who portrayed Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, had informally expressed willingness to reprise the role, which led to a formal meeting with Lucasfilm so the company could gauge his interest in returning to the character for a spin-off film.[11] Development on such a film soon began, with Stephen Daldry entering talks to direct the project in August 2017. Daldry was expected to oversee the development and writing of the film with Lucasfilm,[21] and contacted Hossein Amini about writing it. Amini joined the project in late 2017.[22]

In May 2018, the film was reportedly titled Obi-Wan: A Star Wars Story, with a plot involving Kenobi protecting a young Luke Skywalker on the planet Tatooine amid tensions between local farmers and Tusken Raiders.[23] Production on the film was expected to take place in Northern Ireland under the working title Joshua Tree,[23][24] beginning in 2019 at Paint Hall Studios in Belfast once production on the final season of Game of Thrones ended in late 2018.[25] However, Disney cancelled their planned Star Wars spin-off films, including the Kenobi film, following the financial failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). Lucasfilm's focus changed to making series for the streaming service Disney+, such as The Mandalorian.[26][11] In August 2018, McGregor said he had been asked about a Kenobi spin-off for "years and years" and was happy to be involved, but said there were no plans for such a film at that time. He was interested in exploring the character in the time between his portrayal in the prequel films and that of Alec Guinness in the original trilogy.[27]

McGregor entered negotiations to star in a television series for Disney+ centered on Obi-Wan Kenobi by mid-August 2019.[26] Later that month, at Disney's D23 event, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and McGregor officially announced that the actor would be reprising his role as Kenobi in a new series for Disney+, set eight years after the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005).[3] Filming was scheduled to begin in July 2020,[22][28] and scripts for the six-episode limited series had already been written by Amini at the time of the announcement.[22] McGregor said the announcement was a relief, explaining that he had been lying about his involvement in a Kenobi spin-off for four years.[29] A month later, Kennedy announced that Deborah Chow would direct the Kenobi series after impressing Kennedy with her work directing episodes of The Mandalorian.[30]

In November 2019, Amini said the series' time period was fascinating since Kenobi is dealing with the loss of his friends and the Jedi Order, which allowed Amini to explore aspects of the Star Wars franchise other than action, such as its spiritual side. He took inspiration from the sources that Star Wars creator George Lucas was originally inspired by, including Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Samurai history and culture, and Buddhism. Comparing the series' scripts to his original film plans, Amini said he was able to explore the character, politics, and history more in the series than in a two-hour film where "there is always an imperative for the action and the plot to move particularly fast".[22] Chow felt her work on The Mandalorian was the best training she could have for the Kenobi series, learning from that series' executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni.[31]

Pre-production on the series was underway at Pinewood Studios in London by January 2020,[32] and screen tests were taking place with potential actors opposite McGregor.[33] By the end of the month, rumors began circulating that the series had been cancelled due to production problems. While this was not the case, the series was put on indefinite hold and the assembled crew was sent home.[32][33] Kennedy was said to be unhappy with the series' scripts,[33] which reportedly featured a storyline similar to the story of The Mandalorian, in which the title character protects "The Child", with Kenobi protecting a young Skywalker from various threats.[15][33] Chow had shown these scripts to Favreau and Filoni, who expressed concern over the similarities to The Mandalorian and encouraged Chow and the series to "go bigger".[15] Lucasfilm began looking for a new writer for the series to start over on the scripts, with Chow still expected to direct.[33] Kennedy explained that they were hoping to have a "hopeful, uplifting story", and said executing that would be tricky given the state that Kenobi is in after Revenge of the Sith. She added, "You can't just wave the magic wand with any writer and arrive at a story that necessarily reflects what you want to feel".[11] The goal was for pre-production to begin again in mid-2020 once the scripts had been rewritten.[32] The series was also reportedly being reworked from six episodes to four,[33] but McGregor said he did not believe this was the case. He added that Lucasfilm had decided to spend more time working on the scripts following the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), and filming had been postponed until January 2021, but he did not think this would impact the series' planned release schedule.[34]

Joby Harold was hired to take over as writer from Amini in April 2020,[35] and serve as showrunner.[36] That October, filming was delayed until March 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[37] At Disney's Investor Day event on December 10, Kennedy announced that the series was officially titled Obi-Wan Kenobi, and confirmed that Chow was directing.[1] In February 2021, McGregor revealed that filming for the series would take place in Los Angeles rather than London and Boston, Lincolnshire, England, as had previously been reported.[38][39] The series is executive-produced by Kennedy, Michelle Rejwan, Chow, McGregor, and Harold,[12] and consists of six episodes.[16]

Obi-Wan Kenobi was conceived as a limited series, and Chow said it was "one big story with a beginning, middle, and end". Despite this, Kennedy said there was a chance that more of the series could be made due to the enjoyable time the cast and crew had creating it, as long as there was a compelling story reason to return to the character.[11]

According to Chow, the story went through "significant changes" after Harold's hiring,[11] though some story elements conceived by Amini are included in the first three episodes and the finale, with Amini and Stuart Beattie receiving writing credits for those. Hannah Friedman and Andrew Stanton were additional writers on the series.[17][40] Harold wanted to explore what happened between McGregor's portrayal of Obi-Wan and that of Alec Guinness in the original trilogy, and noted that the series takes place when the Empire is "in the ascendancy" and the Jedi have been wiped out, with any remaining survivors being on the run and in hiding.[11] He stated that Kenobi's past, particularly his relationship with Anakin, makes him a "man who's very much defined by that history, whether he wants to be or not". He added that a crucial part of Kenobi's journey will involve "reconciling that past and coming to understand it and coming to understand his place in it", and also the "places he has to go emotionally as well as physically, and some of those battles he has to fight", which ultimately have "to do with facing that past and understanding who he was, his part in his own history, in the history of others".[41]

Kennedy and Chow cautioned the writers against making any overt connections to The Mandalorian and its spin-off series, with Chow stating that the strongest connections between Obi-Wan Kenobi and the rest of the Star Wars franchise were to the prequel films.[11] Chow wanted to be faithful to George Lucas's original vision for the franchise, and worked to connect elements from the original trilogy and prequel trilogy.[42] She was also inspired by "gritty, poetic westerns" such as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and The Proposition (2005), as well as the works of Akira Kurosawa. She felt that there was a "strong correlation" between the Jedi and the Ronin with their "ethical code that goes along with it, in a world that's vastly changed".[43] A new planet introduced for the series is Daiyu, which Harold compared to Hong Kong with a "graffiti-ridden nightlife"; it serves as a contrast to the desert planet Tatooine, where much of the series takes place.[11]

Long discussions were held before it was decided to include Darth Vader in the series,[11] and Chow said this decision was "not made lightly... Anakin and Vader are a huge and very profound part of [Kenobi's] life. We ended up feeling that he made sense in telling this story."[44] Similar to Kenobi's character in the show, Chow stated that Vader's character "isn't quite as fully formed as A New Hope".[45] The series also features the live-action introduction of Vader's Inquisitors, who are tasked with hunting down the remaining Jedi, after appearing in other Star Wars media.[11] The way that Vader appears in the series and the idea to introduce the Inquisitors were both suggested by Filoni.[15] The original scripts featured different villains, including Darth Maul,[15] but Chow decided not to use him as she felt it would be "a little bit much" to have both Maul and Vader due to the large impact that the latter has on the story. She also acknowledged that Filoni had already told the story of Kenobi and Maul in this time period in the animated series Star Wars Rebels.[44]

Along with the series' announcement at D23 in August 2019 came confirmation that McGregor would star in the series, reprising his role as Kenobi from the prequel trilogy.[3] By the time the production shut down in January 2020, Ray Park was preparing to reprise his role as Darth Maul and an actor had been cast to portray a young Luke Skywalker. Both left the series after Maul was written out of the new scripts and production was delayed.[15]

Kennedy announced in December 2020 that Hayden Christensen would reprise his role from the prequel trilogy as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader in the series.[1][8] McGregor said reuniting with Christensen on the series was "the most beautiful thing of all", while Kennedy described it as the "rematch of the century".[2] In March 2021, Moses Ingram, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie joined the cast,[12] with Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse reprising their roles as Owen Lars and Beru Whitesun Lars, respectively, from the prequel films. Ingram was reported to be playing a "very important role" for the series.[9] A month later, Maya Erskine was cast in a supporting role, reportedly for at least three episodes,[13] while Rory Ross revealed his involvement in January 2022.[14]

In March 2022, Ingram, Friend, and Kang were revealed to be portraying the Inquisitors Reva / the Third Sister, the Grand Inquisitor, and the Fifth Brother, respectively.[5][10] The Grand Inquisitor and the Fifth Brother previously appeared in Star Wars Rebels, voiced by Jason Isaacs and Philip Anthony-Rodriguez, respectively.[46] Isaacs had previously expressed interest in reprising his role in live-action.[47] Varma was confirmed to be playing an Imperial officer,[5] and Grant Feely was revealed to have been cast as the new actor for young Luke Skywalker.[15]In May 2022 it was announced that Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers will appear in the series in an undisclosed role.[48]

Todd Cherniawsky serves as the production designer on the series,[49] with Suttirat Anne Larlarb as costume designer.[50]

Filming was expected to begin in April 2021,[12] in Los Angeles,[38] with Deborah Chow directing;[1] McGregor confirmed that filming had begun by May 4, Star Wars Day.[51] Chung-hoon Chung serves as cinematographer for the series,[52] which uses the StageCraft video wall technology that was previously used by The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.[53][54] McGregor did costume tests for Obi-Wan Kenobi on the set of The Mandalorian,[55] and said the StageCraft technology allowed him to enjoy working on the series more than he did on the prequel films due to the latter's use of blue and green screen.[53][56] McGregor confirmed that filming had wrapped by September 19, 2021.[56]

Natalie Holt was hired to compose the series' score, making her the first woman to score a live-action Star Wars project.[57] Recording for her music was reported to have been taking place for several months by mid-February 2022, when John Williams recorded the main theme for the series with an orchestra in Los Angeles.[58] Williams previously composed the scores for the main Star Wars films, and originally wrote a theme for Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977) which later became associated with the Force in general.[59] Williams approached Kennedy about composing a new theme for the series because Kenobi was the only major character from the original film that he had not written a standalone theme for, and Holt said the new theme was reflective, wistful, and had an "element of hope" which "embodies the spirit of the show entirely".[57] This was the second time Williams had written a theme for a Star Wars project for which he was not the main composer, following Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and was the first weekly television series for which he composed the theme since Amazing Stories in 1985.[59]

Chow flew to London to meet with Holt and do a "two day intensive immersion" into the unfinished footage for the series. Holt then developed themes for the new characters and wrote an original score that she said had its "roots in the Star Wars tradition" more than Ludwig Göransson's Mandalorian music did. Holt's music was recorded with a traditional orchestra in Los Angeles at the Fox Studios Newman Scoring Stage, with some modern synth sounds added. Holt contributed singing, viola, and violin performances, while concert violinist James Ehnes—who Holt was a fan of and who happened to be in Los Angeles while recording was happening—provided violin solo performances. As with previous Star Wars scores, Holt took influence from real-world cultural music to represent different planets in the series, including using Latin music for one planet and more "Eastern" sounds from Thailand and Hong Kong for another. Holt used a hunting horn and some unusual percussion instruments played by Brian Kilgore to create the sound of the Inquisitors which she said "stirs your guts. It's so haunting... It's that jarring, rhythmic texture". Göransson's recording engineer, Chris Fogel, worked with Holt on engineering the score for Obi-Wan Kenobi at Göransson's studio. Holt completed her work for the series by late April 2022.[57]