With two successful Baby Yoda-filled runs under its belt, expectations are high for the upcoming third season of Pedro Pascal's The Mandalorian on Disney+. The Book of Boba Fett is tiding over fans of the galaxy far, far away in the meantime, but audiences will be able to catch up on Din Djarin’s spacefaring adventures soon.
The Season 2 finale ended up with some shocking plot revelations, leading Bo-Katan Kyrze actress Katee Sackhoff to hope that the lingering thread of the Darksaber is addressed.
The series began production on Season 3 back in September, which revealed several interesting tidbits about what future episodes will bring to the table. One set video revealed a new Mandalorian joining the fray, adorned with big bulky armor on some sort of ice planet. Details about a large-scale action scene were also unveiled, which describe a sequence including a vast number of Mandalorian warriors.
Filming took a brief break over the holiday period, leading many to believe that it would resume soon. However, fans now have a disappointing update on the status of Season 3’s production.
The Mandalorian Pauses Filming for COVID-19 Concerns
According to Bespin Bulletin, The Mandalorian Season 3 has reportedly delayed the return to filming following the holiday break due to concerns over rising COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles caused by the Omicron variant.
Rather than any particular members of the production testing positive for COVID-19, The Mandalorian has chosen to pause filming to ensure the safety of the cast and crew. Although filming was intended to start again this week, the production is currently on standby with no set date for it to resume.
Leading star Pedro Pascal is reported to be filming scenes for Season 3 of the Star Wars series in between the production of The Last of Us series, so it is unknown how or if this will impact his commitments to the HBO show.
Is The Mandalorian Production in Trouble?
Although this news may be concerning on one level for the completion of The Mandalorian Season 3's filming, it is reassuring that the production is putting the safety of its cast and crew members at the forefront.
A number of film productions have suffered delays as a result of COVID-19-related shutdowns, so it seems that Lucasfilm is aiming to limit this impact as much as possible by working on its own terms rather than being forced to close production due to an infection.
It's unclear how this could potentially affect the release of the Disney+ series as of yet. While no official release date has been confirmed, The Mandalorian Season 3 is expected to release toward the end of 2022. This could indicate that the production team still has time to get the filming done before post-production begins.
There is, however, the issue of Pedro Pascal's commitments to his role of Joel in The Last of Us, which is currently filming without him. Part of the decision to delay may be to rework the filming schedule to prioritize Pascal's scenes to ensure that he makes it back to filming for the HBO show in time.
The first two seasons of The Mandalorian are streaming now on Disney+.
