It has taken years of waiting, but fans finally have news on Dave Filoni's The Mandalorian crossover movie; it just might not be the news they wanted. Announced all the way back, Filoni's Mandoverse culmination movie was described as the endgame for the franchise's Disney+ efforts at the time. It would have brought together all the stories from series like The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew for one big-screen adventure.
However, the Mandoverse movie quickly slunk into the background of Star Wars's public plans. Instead, the franchise turned its gaze to projects like this year's The Mandalorian & Grogu and the upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter. This started a years-long trend in which Filoni's Mandalorian film received no meaningful updates.
Thankfully, more than five years after it was originally detailed, the star-faring franchise has offered a status report on the project. According to reporting from The Hollywood Reporter, the Mandoverse culmination movie has been "put on the back burner" at Lucasfilm.
This comes amid news that Filoni will take over the Star Wars studio alongside fellow Lucasfilm executive Lynwen Brennan following the retirement of longtime head Kathleen Kennedy.
Filoni's The Mandalorian film is just the latest Star Wars movie to get put on ice in this way, joining the likes of Rian Johnson's post-Sequels trilogy and Patty Jenkins' Squadron.
Star Wars returns to theaters for the first time in over six years this summer, with the release of The Mandalorian & Grogu, a film on which Filoni served as an executive producer. Filoni's next directorial effort in the galaxy far, far away is set to debut later this year in Disney+'s Ahsoka Season 2.
Will We Ever See the Mandoverse Movie?
When the Mandoverse movie was initially announced, it was a big deal. All these streaming series lead to one massive cinematic event that would tie it all together. Back in 2020, coming off the hype of The Mandalorian Season 1, it sounded like a pretty novel idea. However, as time went on, the prospects of Dave Filoni's Mandoverse film felt increasingly dire.
The biggest nail in the coffin (at least for now) for the project was the creative retooling of The Mandalorian Season 4 coming off the Hollywood strikes of 2023.
After a lackluster third season and a sweeping shutdown of the entertainment industry as a whole, Lucasfilm came back from the work stoppage with the news that it was going to forgo a Mandalorian Season 4, instead opting for the movie project that would become Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian & Grogu.
Now, a project that has been branded as this massive big screen finale to an exclusively Disney+ bound story was going to have some of its luster taken away thanks to another Star Wars movie featuring the Mando name.
While Lucasfilm would never admit it, this move really felt like the beginning of the end for the project, at least in the form it had been initially pitched.
Last April, Filoni commented on the movie's lack of news, telling the press that it was requiring a "long development" cycle to get off the ground properly. Now that Dave Filoni is stepping into his new role as head of Lucasfilm, his time is going to be spread even thinner, potentially making it even harder for him to focus on getting the Mandoverse film out the door.
So, the movie will sit on the back burner. Whether it will ever be picked back up remains unclear.
