UNTIL RECENTLY, IF someone asked you to
name a famous Mandalorian (don’t scoff —
it happens toEmpireon a near-daily basis),
you would have had precisely two answers.
There’s Jango Fett, the helmet-wearing,
armour-sporting, tough-as-nails mercenary
who got decapitated by a Windu. And his son/
clone (it’s complicated), Boba Fett. Yes, the
helmet-wearing, armour-sporting, tough-as-
nails bounty hunter who got eaten alive by
some kind of giant sandpit.
That’s it. Those were your only two choices.
Well, not anymore. Now, Jon Favreau has helped
out by creatingThe Mandalorian, the first-ever
live-actionStar WarsTV show. Now, there’s
a third choice. Now, there’s Mando.
THE MANDALORIANIS, essentially, about
a helmet-wearing, armour-sporting, tough-as-
nails bounty hunter (who has neither been
decapitated by a Windu, nor eaten alive by some
kind of giant sandpit), crisscrossing the galaxy
in search of new marks. But it’s much more than
that. In its own way, it’s as momentous a piece
ofStar Warshistory asA New Hope, orThe
Force Awakens.
For it’s the flagship show of Disney+, the
streaming-service arm of the studio, debuting to
great acclaim last November. And it’s already
been greenlit for a second season, which
premieres later this year.
OtherStar Warsshows are on the way, too
— a Cassian Andor number that will give a solo
spotlight to Diego Luna’s Rogue One, and the
return of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
— as well as a raft of new content from the Marvel
Cinematic Universe. ButThe Mandalorianis
the big draw. The USP. In many ways, with the
Skywalker Saga freshly concluded and no new
Star Warsfilm due until December 2022, it’s the
future ofStar Wars.
Favreau had been circling the series with
intent ever since Disney bought Lucasfilm back
in 2012. “I watched the prequels again, and the
original films, and I started to think about ideas,”
he tellsEmpire. “I was talking to [Lucasfi lm
president] Kathy Kennedy, before anything was
in place for the sequels or anything. At the time
it was more about movies. There were going to
be different movies, standalone movies, spin-off
series. And so we kept in touch.”
Nothing quite coalesced, and as Star Wars
hit the big screen hard with The Force Awakens
and the likes ofRogue One, Favreau kept himself
busy withChef, then his lavish adaptations of
Disney classicsThe Jungle Book and The Lion
King. But there was always an idea noodling
around at the back of his brain — not for a fi lm,
but for a TV show that would allow him to tell
stories on a more intimate scale. “When I fi rst
sawStar Wars, it was a relatively small-scale
story, with moments that were big,” he says.
So when Disney+ was announced in 2017,
Favreau went back in with a pitch. Which begat
a meeting. Which begat more meetings. And
more meetings after that.
So Favreau took matters into his own
fingers, while he was already in post-production
onThe Lion King. “That process was not an
eight-hour-a-day job by the end, so I started
writingThe Mandalorian instead of waiting
to get permission,” he laughs. “I knew I was going
to be in trouble if they didn’t want it, becauseI didn’t want to just change the names of
everybody, and call it a new movie. I was
interested in it because it was Star Wars.”
The gambit worked. With four episodes
written, providing a clear vision of what the show
would be, Kennedy fl icked a light as green as
Luke’s lightsaber, and The Mandalorian was on.THE STAR WARS universe is pretty damn
big. You could make a live-action show about
pretty much any facet of that universe. A Lobot
show? Sure, knock yourself out. ‘The Gungan’,
in which a proto-Jar Jar runs amok on Naboo,
causing havoc in each episode like a fi shy Frank
Spencer? Okay, maybe not that. So why did
Favreau zoom in on this particular one?
When Empire catches up with him,
he’s driving to the set of the show’s second
season. The fi rst season has recently fi nished
its eight-episode run in the States. He’s
had time to refl ect on all the reasons why
he chose to focus on one of the lesser lights
of the Star Wars galaxy.
There’s his obvious fascination with men
in masks. “I’ve noticed that the stuff I do on
The Mandalorian echoes in some ways the
stuff I had done with Iron Man,” says the man
who, eff ectively, birthed the MCU by sticking