For years, Star Wars fans have treated Mara Jade’s canon return like one of those rumors that never fully dies. This week, that hope took another hit. According to Popverse’s coverage of a MegaCon 2026 panel, Star Wars author Claudia Gray said she had asked Lucasfilm about bringing Mara Jade into canon and got a firm no. Right next to her, Timothy Zahn reportedly added that he had asked too. Same answer. That is a pretty blunt update for a character who has spent decades near the top of the Star Wars wish list. Mara Jade keeps running into the same wall If this sounds familiar, that is because it is. Popverse also reported back in September 2024 that Zahn said he kept nudging Lucasfilm about writing Mara Jade into the current canon, and that the responses landed somewhere between “no” and “heck no.” The new Claudia Gray quote makes…
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Sam Witwer Says Maul: Shadow Lord Was Built for Newcomers — and Compares Maul to Jack Torrance
Sam Witwer has now said the quiet part out loud: Maul: Shadow Lord is not just a reward for longtime Clone Wars diehards. In a new YouTube interview, Witwer said the series was shaped so even people with little or no Star Wars background can jump in and understand it, which is a pretty revealing statement about what Lucasfilm seems to want this show to do. That matters because Maul has never exactly been a beginner-friendly character. His timeline is messy, his rage is old, and half his best material is spread across movies, animation, and a surprise live-action cameo. But Witwer said Shadow Lord was constructed “with an eye toward” new viewers, with the story designed to explain itself rather than demand homework first. That lines up with the official setup for the series, which places Maul on Janix in the early Imperial era as he tries to rebuild…
13 Years Later, the Shutdown of LucasArts Still Feels Like a Brutal Turning Point for Star Wars Games
Thirteen years ago this week, Disney pulled the plug on LucasArts’ internal game development and pushed the company into a licensing model instead. It was the kind of corporate sentence that sounds tidy on paper and disastrous everywhere else. The bigger headline at the time was not just that LucasArts as a game studio was effectively over. It was that two of its active Star Wars projects, Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault, went down with it. Lucasfilm’s official line back then was that the move would “minimize the company’s risk” while opening the door to a broader portfolio of Star Wars games through outside partners. That may have made business sense in Burbank boardroom language, but for players it mostly translated to this: one of gaming’s most storied Star Wars labels stopped building games, around 150 staff were affected, and two intriguing projects were suddenly dead in…
How StarWars.com Changed Over the Years, According to the Wayback Machine
If you’ve ever wanted proof that the internet used to look like it was held together by duct tape, optimism, and a lot of beige, the best place to start is the Wayback Machine That archive is basically a time machine for the web, and when you run StarWars.com through it, you’re not just looking at old homepage designs. You’re watching Star Wars learn how to exist online. Over the years, the official site went from a pretty modest promo page into a full-blown franchise mothership packed with news, videos, Databank entries, Disney+ tie-ins, games, and enough navigation tabs to make a 1998 modem cry. The fun part is that the changes on StarWars.com don’t just reflect web design trends. They track the changing priorities of Star Wars itself. In one era, the site was all about movie hype. In another, it became a fan hub. Later, it shifted into…
Disney+ Announces Tales of the Moisture Farmer for May 4 Release
Lucasfilm has apparently found its next great Star Wars story, and this time it is not about Jedi, Sith, bounty hunters, clones, or criminal syndicates. It is about something far more dangerous: trying to keep a moisture farm alive on Tatooine. According to a teaser image now circulating online, Tales of the Moisture Farmer is set to arrive on May 4 as a four-episode Disney+ event series, promising what may be the most aggressively grounded Star Wars project ever pitched. If the title is real, the series looks aimed squarely at the most underserved corner of the galaxy: overworked Outer Rim labor, broken vaporators, and the kind of dry agricultural despair only twin suns can provide. A Smaller, Stranger Kind of Star Wars On paper, this sounds ridiculous. Which is exactly why it sounds weirdly plausible. Lucasfilm has spent the last few years exploring more specific corners of the Star…
Grogu Just Took Over The Mandalorian and Grogu Promo Push
Lucasfilm’s latest The Mandalorian and Grogu video is not a trailer, not a TV spot, and not exactly a standard featurette either. Titled “Grogu Joins the Conversation,” the new promo leans hard into the movie’s safest marketing weapon: put Grogu in the room, let everyone else orbit around him, and watch the internet do the rest. Fantha Tracks describes the clip as Grogu sitting down with Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, and Jon Favreau to discuss the film, while StarWars.com is using the same video as a featured push for the movie. This Is Less About Plot and More About Vibe That is what makes the clip interesting. It is not really trying to reveal major new story details. Instead, it feels like Lucasfilm settling into the tone of the campaign and reminding people that The Mandalorian and Grogu is not just another Disney+ extension anymore. This is the big-screen version…
The Mandalorian and Grogu Just Crashed a Savannah Bananas Game, and Honestly It Makes Weird Sense
The road to The Mandalorian and Grogu is taking some delightfully strange turns. This weekend, Din Djarin and Grogu made a surprise appearance at a Savannah Bananas game in Anaheim, with Fantha Tracks reporting that the duo showed up during the Bananas’ matchup against the Indianapolis Clowns. It is the kind of crossover that sounds made up until you remember modern Star Wars marketing has fully embraced the “put Grogu everywhere” philosophy. And this was not some totally random one-off. Disney had already turned March 26 into “Savannah Bananas Day” at Disneyland Resort, with performances at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, plus a Bananas stop in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge before the baseball festivities rolled into Angel Stadium. In other words, the Mando-and-Grogu cameo looks a lot less like chaos and a lot more like a carefully timed Disney-Star Wars-Banana Ball brand mashup. Wild sentence. Real sentence. A smarter promo…
Jeremy Allen White Says Finding Rotta the Hutt’s Voice Was Freer Than Playing Bruce Springsteen
Jeremy Allen White has now given one of the better descriptions yet of what makes The Mandalorian and Grogu such a strange swing. Speaking in Empire-backed coverage surfaced this month, White said playing Rotta the Hutt gave him “a bit more freedom” than playing Bruce Springsteen, because Springsteen’s voice is so instantly recognizable. Rotta, by contrast, gave him more room to experiment — including, in his words, the fact that “my speaking voice changes [as Rotta].” That is a weird comparison on paper, but it actually tells you a lot about what kind of performance this is. Rotta Is Clearly Not Being Played as a Joke That matters because White is not just voicing some throwaway CGI creature. Lucasfilm has already confirmed that he plays Rotta the Hutt in The Mandalorian and Grogu, the upcoming theatrical Star Wars film opening May 22, 2026. Official material has also made it clear…
D23 2026 Could Be a Big Night for Ahsoka Season 2 and Star Wars: Starfighter
Disney has now locked in one date that Star Wars fans should probably circle in red: the Disney Entertainment Showcase at D23 2026 will take place on August 14 at 7:00 p.m. at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Official D23 event pages describe the showcase as the place for stars, storytellers, “exciting reveals,” sneak peeks, and some of Disney’s biggest announcements across film, television, and streaming. That does not confirm any specific Star Wars reveals yet. But it absolutely puts the showcase on the radar as one of the most likely places for Lucasfilm to show something new. Ahsoka Season 2 Feels Like the Most Obvious Candidate If one Star Wars project looks naturally positioned for a D23 spotlight, it is Ahsoka Season 2. StarWars.com said in January that the series was already in production for its second season, with Dave Filoni continuing as showrunner. That alone makes August feel…
Phil Lord’s New Solo Comment Suggests Han Was Meant to Be More Than a One-Off
A throwaway line from Phil Lord may have just reopened one of the strangest “what if” questions in modern Star Wars. During a recent Happy Sad Confused interview with Josh Horowitz, Lord said one benefit of not being “on the hook for making like three Han Solo sequels” was that he and Chris Miller could go make original franchise material instead. It was not framed like a big reveal, but it landed like one. Because if you take that line at face value, Lucasfilm’s plan for Solo may once have stretched well beyond a single movie. That Is a Bigger Han Solo Plan Than Fans Ever Officially Heard About The key detail here is the wording. Lord did not say “maybe there could have been more.” He said “three Han Solo sequels,” which strongly suggests there was at least some version of a longer-term roadmap in the air when he…
BB-8 Puppeteer Says Sequel Backlash Is Repeating Prequel History
Brian Herring, the puppeteer and performer behind BB-8 in the sequel trilogy, thinks Star Wars fans have seen this cycle before. In a new interview with Gamereactor, Herring argued that the sequel trilogy is “no more polarising” than the prequels were when they first landed, suggesting today’s online backlash says as much about generational turnover as it does about the films themselves. Herring has long been closely tied to modern Star Wars on screen, with StarWars.com previously spotlighting his work bringing BB-8 to life. The Internet Changed the Volume, Not the Pattern Herring’s basic argument is pretty sharp: people angry about the sequels are often too young to remember how intensely fans pushed back against the prequels when those films arrived. His point is not that everyone has to like Episodes VII-IX. It is that the reaction pattern feels familiar, only louder now because every debate gets amplified online. In…
Disney’s Star Wars AI Video Plan Dies With Sora Shutdown
Disney’s Star Wars AI video experiment is over before it ever really started. OpenAI has decided to shut down Sora, its consumer video product, and that move also kills the high-profile Disney agreement that would have brought more than 200 Disney-owned characters and settings, including Star Wars, into AI-generated fan videos. Reuters reported that the deal never officially closed and that no money changed hands, even though Disney had announced plans in December to invest $1 billion in OpenAI as part of the broader partnership. A Big Star Wars Bet That Never Reached Launch Back in December, Disney said Sora would be able to generate short fan-style videos using a licensed pool of more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters, plus costumes, props, vehicles, and iconic environments. The companies also said some curated Sora-generated videos could eventually stream on Disney+. In other words, this was not some…
Ryan Gosling Says One Star Wars: Starfighter Scene Was “One of the Most Fun” He’s Ever Done
Star Wars: Starfighter is still keeping most of its secrets locked down, but Ryan Gosling just gave away a very telling little detail about the movie’s creature work. Speaking in a recent interview, Gosling said he visited the creature shop early during production so he could see what was being built and figure out ways to interact with those creations in the film. According to him, he ended up spotting one “very special” creature that had originally been meant as a background character, asked if he could have a scene with it, and that moment turned into “one of the most fun scenes” he has ever done. He also said the team later gave him a model of the creature as his wrap gift, and that it is now sitting in his house. A Small Quote That Says a Lot That is not a plot reveal, but it is exactly…
John Boyega Says He’s Had Talks With Dave Filoni About Returning as Finn
John Boyega has just given Star Wars fans a small but very real reason to start paying attention to Finn again. During an appearance at MegaCon Orlando, an audience member reportedly shouted, “Get Dave on the phone,” referring to new Lucasfilm President and Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni. Boyega’s answer was simple: “I actually have, actually.” Multiple entertainment outlets have since picked up the moment as confirmation that he has at least spoken with Filoni about a possible Star Wars return. A Small Quote With Big Finn Energy This is not a casting announcement. It is not Lucasfilm confirming a new movie, series, or Finn-led project. But it is still notable. Boyega has had a complicated relationship with Star Wars in the years since the sequel trilogy, openly discussing disappointment with how Finn’s arc was handled. That is why this quote lands harder than a throwaway convention soundbite normally would….
Star Wars: A New Hope Began Filming 50 Years Ago Today
Fifty years ago today, Star Wars stopped being an idea and started becoming a movie. On March 22, 1976, principal photography began on what was then called The Star Wars, with cameras rolling in Tunisia on the edge of the Sahara. Lucasfilm is marking the date today, framing it as the moment one of the most important films in modern pop culture officially went into production. The Day the Galaxy Really Started Moving That date matters because it was the point where George Lucas’ risky space fantasy became something real. By then, Lucas had already pushed through years of development, multiple screenplay drafts, studio skepticism, and the early build-out of the creative machine that would eventually become part of Star Wars legend, including Industrial Light & Magic and Ben Burtt’s sound work. But March 22, 1976 was when the project finally moved from concept art, scripts, and headaches into actual…
Ryan Gosling Says Star Wars: Starfighter Will Use Practical Puppets
Ryan Gosling has confirmed that Star Wars: Starfighter will feature practical puppets, dropping one of the most reassuringly Star Wars details fans could have hoped to hear this early in the film’s rollout. The comment came during press for Project Hail Mary, when Gosling was asked whether the upcoming Lucasfilm movie would include practical puppets. His answer was brief, slightly cautious, and very on-brand: “Yes… I think I can say that.” That may sound like a tiny production note, but in Star Wars terms, it is not. Puppets, animatronics, suits, and tactile creature work are part of the series’ visual DNA, from the Mos Eisley cantina to Yoda, Jabba, the porgs, Neel in Skeleton Crew, and just about every weird little alien that makes the galaxy feel lived-in. Star Wars has a long history of blending practical creature effects with digital work, and Lucasfilm has continued highlighting that mix in…
Lucasfilm Is Building Hype for Maul’s Return With a New Official Look Back at His Darkest Moments
Lucasfilm is turning up the heat on Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord with a new official StarWars.com feature that revisits some of Darth Maul’s most devious moments across the saga. The piece, titled “Maul’s Most Devious Moments,” looks back at the former Sith apprentice’s most important battles and appearances in film, animation, and comics ahead of the new Disney+ series. It is clearly part of the bigger push toward Maul – Shadow Lord, which premieres on April 6, 2026. StarWars.com Is Framing Maul as More Than Just a Villain One of the more interesting things about the official feature is how it presents Maul not as a one-note bad guy, but as one of the most persistent and unpredictable figures in Star Wars history. StarWars.com highlights Maul’s journey through The Phantom Menace, The Clone Wars, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Rebels, and Marvel’s new Star Wars: Shadow of Maul…
Bob Iger Steps Down as Disney CEO Tomorrow — and Lucasfilm Became One of His Biggest Franchise Bets
Bob Iger is set to step down as Disney CEO in March 2026, with Disney naming Josh D’Amaro as his successor. Reuters reported that D’Amaro will take over in March, while Iger will remain a senior adviser through the end of the year. For Star Wars fans, that makes this more than just a Disney boardroom story. Iger was the CEO who pushed Disney to acquire Lucasfilm in 2012 for about $4.05 billion, a deal Disney announced officially at the time as a major long-term franchise play. Lucasfilm Was One of the Defining Iger Moves When people look back at the Iger era, Lucasfilm is going to be one of the first things they mention. Under Iger, Disney did not just buy Star Wars. It turned Lucasfilm into one of the company’s most important franchise engines across films, streaming, merchandise, and theme-park strategy. Disney’s 2024 proxy-fight materials, as reported by…
Lucasfilm Reveals the Full Maul – Shadow Lord Episode Release Calendar
Lucasfilm has now shared the full release calendar for Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, giving fans a much clearer look at how the series will roll out on Disney+. The official schedule confirms that the show begins with a two-episode premiere on April 6, 2026, followed by two new episodes each week until the finale lands on May 4, which is fittingly Star Wars Day. StarWars.com had already confirmed that release pattern in its official trailer coverage, and the newly shared calendar now lays out the episode titles by date. The Full Maul – Shadow Lord Release Schedule According to the release calendar image shared by Lucasfilm, the schedule looks like this: April 6Chapter 1: The Dark RevengeChapter 2: Sinister Schemes April 13Chapter 3: Whispers in the UnknownChapter 4: Pride and Vengeance April 20Chapter 5: InquisitionChapter 6: Night of the Hunted April 27Chapter 7: Call to the OblivionChapter 8:…
Matthew Willig Says He’s in The Mandalorian and Grogu, and That Is a Fun Little Casting Update for Mando Fans
Sometimes a Star Wars casting update does not arrive with a glossy Lucasfilm press release or a dramatic trade headline. Sometimes it just shows up because the actor is understandably excited and decides to say, more or less, “yeah, I’m in the movie.” That is basically what happened with Matthew Willig, who posted that he will be making an appearance in The Mandalorian and Grogu and thanked Lucasfilm for helping him fulfill “a kid’s dream.” This Looks Like More Than a Rumor at This Point The reason this one feels solid is that it is not just floating around as recycled fan chatter. Willig said it himself on social media, and Jedi News followed that up with a report tied to his upcoming Rebel Scum Con III appearance, stating that he is playing an as-yet unnamed Iktotchi character in the film. That takes this from “internet speculation” to something a…
The Mandalorian and Grogu May Be 2 Hours and 20 Minutes Long — But Treat That Runtime Carefully for Now
A possible runtime for The Mandalorian and Grogu is now floating around online, and for once it is not coming from some random account with a blurry screenshot and too much confidence. Odeon Cinemas is currently listing the movie at 2h 20m on its film page, which is obviously the sort of detail Star Wars fans will latch onto immediately. Because the second a runtime appears, the entire conversation becomes: is that good, is that too long, is that secretly perfect, and what exactly is Jon Favreau doing with all that time? Odeon Has It Listed at 2 Hours and 20 Minutes As of now, Odeon’s listing for The Mandalorian & Grogu shows a runtime of 2 hours and 20 minutes alongside the film’s May 22, 2026 release date. If that number holds, the movie would land in a very normal modern Star Wars feature range, which makes sense for…
Kathleen Kennedy Confirms Grogu Still Won’t Speak in The Mandalorian & Grogu — and Says Filoni’s Lucasfilm Transition Was a 10-Year Plan
Kathleen Kennedy just dropped two very clean, very quotable Star Wars updates in a Variety interview — one about Grogu, and one about Lucasfilm’s leadership shift. And both are the kind of details that quietly tell you what era of Star Wars we’re walking into next. Grogu is going big-screen… and still won’t say a word Asked what it was like the first time she “heard Grogu speak,” Kennedy flipped the premise and used Grogu as the perfect example of a character that has to emote without dialogue. Her answer is blunt: audiences are going to fall even deeper in love with him on the big screen, and he never speaks a word. She also explicitly confirms Grogu won’t suddenly gain speech in The Mandalorian & Grogu — despite Yoda’s famous broken-English cadence. In other words: no “Grogu talks now” twist. No “cute sidekick monologue.” The character is staying in…
Kathleen Kennedy Is Picking Up Another Major Industry Honor — and Whatever You Think of Modern Star Wars, That Part Is Not Debatable
Kathleen Kennedy is adding another major industry honor to a résumé that was already ridiculous. At the 73rd Annual Golden Reel Awards on March 8, 2026, Kennedy is set to receive the MPSE Filmmaker Award, one of the honorary awards handed out by the Motion Picture Sound Editors. The event listing from MPSE names Kennedy as the Filmmaker Honoree, with sound editor Mark Mangini receiving the Career Achievement honor. That is the dry version. The more interesting version is this: whatever arguments people want to keep having about modern Star Wars, Kennedy’s status inside the film industry is still massive. Variety reported the honor back in December, noting that the MPSE Filmmaker Award goes to someone outside the sound community whose work has had a meaningful impact on the art of sound in film. That makes the award less about fandom discourse and more about the size of Kennedy’s overall…
Ryan Gosling Says Star Wars: Starfighter Is a “Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity”
Ryan Gosling is opening up about what convinced him to step into the Star Wars universe — and it wasn’t just the franchise name. The award-nominated actor, known for roles in Barbie, Blade Runner 2049, and Project Hail Mary, revealed that he had avoided major franchise films for much of his career. That changed when Star Wars: Starfighter came along. In a recent interview, he described the project as something that finally felt right — a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” What Made This Star Wars Role Different Speaking with io9, Gosling said that what ultimately drew him to Starfighter was not simply joining a blockbuster franchise, but the vision, enthusiasm, and script presented by director Shawn Levy. “It was Shawn’s enthusiasm and his vision and the script… and it is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Gosling explained. He also admitted he had intentionally steered clear of long-running franchise fare before, because nothing had…