'Star Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi TV Series Writer Talks Expanding A Feature Film Into Six Episodes

Disney and Lucasfilm will be releasing the first live-action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, when Disney+ launches in just a couple days on November 12. But they're already hard at work on the next round of Star Wars content that will be coming to the streaming service, and that includes a six episode series focusing on Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi eight years after the events of Revenge of the Sith. Originally, this story was going to be a feature film, but it's been retooled into a series, and writer Hossein Amini is happy to take more time to explore the state of things, both in Obi-Wan's life and the galaxy at large. Find out what he had to say about the forthcoming series below.

Hossein Amini has been working on this Obi-Wan Kenobi project since back when it was going to be part of the Star Wars Story line-up of movies. Director Stephen Daldry was in place to direct, but the box office performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story had Disney and Lucasfilm reassessing their approach to Star Wars on the big screen. But Slavin is totally fine with that. Speaking with Discussing Film, Amini said:

"The situation is so complex both for him personally and in a way, the state of the galaxy, you sort of need time to explore it. To be honest there are loads of other stories within that period as well, it's quite a few years. There is so much going on between episode III and IV that hasn't been explored. The idea of being able to go into a character journey plus the politics and plus all the vastness of the Empire and what's going on is exciting just because it feels like a proper period of history and sometimes that is hard to do in two hours."

Amini makes it sounds like the Obi-Wan Kenobi series could open the door for other spin-offs set within that same time period. There's a lot of unexplored territory there, and if fans like what the Obi-Wan series gives them, then it wouldn't be surprising if Lucasfilm wanted to play around with things a bit more. Perhaps there's even the possibility of fleshing out some of the storyline that would have played out after the cliffhanger ending of Solo: A Star Wars Story, where Darth Maul was revealed to be the mastermind behind the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn.

But when it comes to Obi-Wan series, perhaps we'll see more about how a Jedi tries to live his life when their overall purpose has been taken away from them. Kenobi is left to watch over Luke Skywalker as he lives his life on Tatooine with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. But what else does he get up to during all that time? Amini added in another part of the interview:

"I loved Star Wars because I've always been interested in different religions, like the whole notion of the samurai I've always loved."

Perhaps we'll see Obi-Wan Kenobi living his life not unlike a samurai, and he suddenly finds himself with a situation that he can't turn his back on. Maybe there will be some kind of Seven Samurai kind of scenario that Obi-Wan can't help but get involved with. That's just speculation on our part, but Obi-Wan working with some kind of ragtag team of people to protect a village or something like that sounds like it could be an interesting story to play out in a series.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series will be directed by Deborah Chow, who will also executive produce with Kathleen Kennedy, Hossein Amini, Tracey Seaward, John Swartz, and Ewan McGregor. Lucasfilm's executive vice president of production, Jason McGatlin, will also serve as co-producer. We're not sure when the series is meant to be released, but production is supposed to begin in July 2020. Stay tuned for more.