Posted in: Disney+, streaming, TV | Tagged: disney, Jonathan Kasdan, ron howard, willow

Willow: Film Director Ron Howard Would Direct Series Season 2 Episode

Willow film director Ron Howard would like a chance to direct an episode of the second season should Disney+ decide to renew the series.

One of the earliest career-defining films for Ron Howard as a director was 1988's Willow. When the legacy sequel series was announced for Disney+, his name was mysteriously absent from any of the episodes but does credit as an executive producer as Jonathan Kasdan acts as showrunner for the latest incarnation of the George Lucas franchise. While Howard's had a hand at several projects as executive producer, he's focused his directing efforts more on the cinematic side with 2022's Thirteen Lives for Amazon Prime Video, and the documentary We Feed People for National Geographic. While he hasn't directed for TV since a 2017 episode of NatGeo's Genius, he opened up about returning to Willow for season two should Disney decide to renew the series.

Ron Howard Wants to Direct a Willow Season Two Episode

"I was a little disappointed not to have time this time," Howard told Entertainment Weekly. "It would be a function of looking at the calendar." The two-time Oscar winner worked with Kasdan in 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story. Coincidentally, his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard's been active on the TV side of the Star Wars franchise directing episodes of The Mandalorian & The Book of Boba Fett. "I was always excited for Warwick [Davis] to be Willow again," Howard said. "But I was most excited by Jon's expansion of the next generation and their relationships. Because the first one was built on the charm and the emotion that came out of the relationships."

Howard's been creatively involved with Kasdan, offering script notes on the Disney+ series even if he's not sitting in the director's chair. "I happened to agree with the approach," he says with a laugh. "I didn't have to be the bearer of bad news at any point. But I offered up notes, criticisms, and ideas. That's the way I was utilized and activated. There were discussions about where the season would go and how the episodes would unfold, and I participated in that. But once the overarching shape of the first season and the launch into the adventure was defined, and once the key cast members were in place, it fell completely on Jon's shoulders." For more, you can check out the interview here.

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