Today at D23, Disney unveiled its first trailer for the first live-action Star Wars TV show, The Mandalorian. The series will follow a lone, Mandalorian gunslinger in the years after Return of The Jedi, and will debut on Disney’s streaming platform, Disney+, on November 12th.
The trailer opens with a grisly shot of stormtrooper helmets on pikes, showing off a lawless galaxy in the aftermath of the fall of the Empire. Along the way, we also get glimpses of aliens, Death Troopers, speeder chases, people frozen in carbonite, and some space battles. All in all, it looks like what you’d expect in a Star Wars story.
Written by Iron Man and The Lion King director Jon Favreau, the series will star Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones) as the titular Mandalorian gunslinger, as well as Omid Abtahi (American Gods), Gina Carano (Deadpool), Giancarlo Espositio (Breaking Bad), Werner Herzog (Jack Reacher), Nick Nolte (Angel has Fallen), Emily Swallow (Supernatural, Castlevania), and Carl Weathers (Predator). Ming-Na Wen (Stargate Universe, Agents of SHIELD), has also joined the cast. David Filoni (The Clone Wars), Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Bryce Dallas Howard (Solemates), and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) each directed episodes in the series.
While Lucasfilm has established a solid track record with animated Star Wars TV shows with the likes of The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and Star Wars Resistance, a live-action Star Wars TV series has been something the studio has long sought to make. George Lucas announced in 2005 that he was working on a live-action series called Underworld, which would be set on the galactic capital of Coruscant. While Lucas and other writers had produced a number of scripts, he ultimately put the series on hold because of the cost.
This is the first public trailer that the company has released, but it did show off an extended clip from the series back in April at this year’s big Star Wars convention, Celebration.
As Disney plans to rival other streaming services like Amazon Prime, Apple TV Plus, and Netflix, it’s investing heavily in the series — the 10-episode first season is rumored to cost upwards of $100 million. The series also isn’t the only live-action show in the works: Disney announced late last year that it was developing a second show, which will follow Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), the rebel spy seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Set to premiere in 2021, the show will serve as a prequel to that film, and will also see Alan Tudyk reprising his role as K-2S0, Cassian’s robotic sidekick.
The Mandalorian will begin streaming on Disney+ on November 12th.
