Disney+: Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Ready To See The Sunlight

Is The Mandalorian not enough to satisfy your Star Wars needs? Well, incredible news, as a long-gestating new Star Wars series looks like it’s finally getting ready to start production. On October 9, Ewan McGregor appeared on The Graham Norton Show, where he was asked about the hotly anticipated stand-alone show focused on Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Not only did McGregor confirm that the show is still moving forward, but he also had some incredible news for fans: the Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series is planning to begin filming in March 2021.

The late Alec Guinness originated the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first film of the franchise, Star Wars: A New Hope. McGregor later took over the part for the prequel series, beginning with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. He played a younger version of the Jedi Master, who was tasked with looking after Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen) before his turn to the dark side. During his interview, McGregor confirmed that the series is going to be, “The Obi-Wan Kenobi story.”

This public acknowledgement will be a relief to those eagerly anticipating the series, which has faced delays. After being announced in 2019, reports surfaced in early 2020 that Disney+ was going back to the drawing board after they were unsatisfied with the original scripts turned in by Drive screenwriter Hossein Amini. It now appears that they’ve remedied those issues, and are ready to get the series off the ground.

During his appearance on The Graham Norton Show, McGregor also touched on how Guinness’ iconic portrayal would be influencing his return to the role.

How Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan Kenobi influenced Ewan McGregor’s portrayal

Disney hasn’t been forthcoming with the exact plot details of the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series. The one major clue fans have gotten is that the show will take place eight years after Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (via IGN). This means that Obi-Wan will be somewhere between the young buck he was in the prequel films and the wizened older man that fans were first introduced to back in the seventies.

During The Graham Norton Show, when McGregor spoke about using Guinness’ Oscar-nominated performance as a touchstone for his own portrayal in the prequel trilogy, he said, “The fun thing about doing them in the first place, when I was much younger, was trying to imagine Alec Guinness…how would he play these scenes as a younger guy?”

However, McGregor recognized that he and the character are now approaching the age that Guinness (who isn’t responsible for Obi-Wan’s death, by the way) was in the original. The actor said he was looking to find a balance between his younger approach, and that of Guinness: “I’m much closer in age to him, and it will be my challenge to try and sort of meet him somewhere.”

We’ll have to wait until the Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series finally drops to see exactly what that looks like. But this latest news is at least confirmation that fans aren’t waiting in vain.