Posted in: Disney+, Preview, Star Wars, streaming, TV | Tagged: Anakin Skywalker, Benny Safdie, Bonnie Piesse, disney plus, Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, indira varma, joel edgerton, Kumail Nanjiani, lucasfilm, Moses Ingram, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Obi Wan Kenobi, obi-wan, rupert friend, Simone Kessell, star wars, sung kang

Obi-Wan Kenobi Production Beginning Soon; Series Cast Introduced

Earlier this month, we reported on some production rumblings going on around Lucasfilm and Disney+'s upcoming Ewan McGregor-starring Obi-Wan Kenobi– specifically, that McGregor was getting jacked to start filming. This morning, things were made a whole lot more official with official news that production on the "Star Wars' universe special event series will begin soon. In addition, viewers were introduced to the cast, some we know and others we're hearing about for the first time. Joining McGregor is Hayden Christensen, Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie. Deadline Hollywood lists the series as taking place "10 years after Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, where Kenobi faced his greatest defeat, the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned evil Sith Lord Darth Vader."

Preparing for a series he says is "a long time coming," McGregor revealed in an interview with Empire last year and that he's more excited to play the iconic character now than he was in the last two prequel films. "I'm more excited about doing this one than I was doing the second and third one that we did before," the actor explained. One of the reasons for the excitement: his director. "I'm just excited about working with Deborah Chow [director], and the storylines are going to be really good I think. I'm just excited to play him again. It's been long enough since I played him before," said McGregor.

McGregor's also looking forward to getting some time filming on The Volume, the high-resolution video wall tech that allows for large-scale artificial environment creation used by The Mandalorian. "The first three [Star Wars films] I did were really at the very beginning of digital photography," the actor explains. "We had a camera with an umbilical cord to a tent, it was like back to the beginning of movies where the camera didn't move very much because there was so much hardware attached to it. Now we're going to be able to really create stuff without swathes of green-screen and blue-screen, which becomes very tedious for the actor."

Director Deborah Chow moves from directing episodes of The Mandalorian to directing the entire run of the series with directorial "geek cred" that also includes American Gods, Better Call Saul, Lost in Space, Jessica Jones, Reign, and Mr. Robot. In April 2020, Joby Harold (Army of the Dead) was tapped to replace Hossein Amini (Drive) after reports surfaced that Lucasfilm president and Obi-Wan producer Kathleen Kennedy was dissatisfied with Amini's scripts. Allegedly, Kennedy was concerned that having the lead character serve as a mentor to a young Luke and/or Leia skewed too close to The Mandalorian-The Child aka "Baby Yoda" dynamic.

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