The Star Wars franchise has certainly gone down an interesting path in the last few years. Even prior to Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm Limited in 2012 and the announcement of a sequel trilogy starting with J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars was everywhere. Dave Filoni’s The Clone Wars was planned to last multiple more seasons, and there were several ongoing novel series and comic book runs. New Star Wars video games were in development, and the addition of the Star Tours ride at Walt Disney World only attracted more new fans to the franchise. The production of new Star Wars projects has only intensified in the last few years with the plethora of new movies and content on Disney+.
While Disney relaunched the franchise timeline and deemed a majority of the previously existing comics, books, and games as “Legends” material, the production of new films has given Star Wars writers many new timelines and eras to explore. Not everything that Disney has created has been successful. Some of their projects range from major creative successes, like Rian Johnson’s artful film The Last Jedi and Tony Gilroy’s politically relevant drama series Andor. Others, such as the disastrous conclusion of the Skywalker saga in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the underwhelming spinoff series The Book of Boba Fett, have been complete failures.
Over the course of the long history of a franchise that started in 1977, there have been countless films, shows, books, comics, and games that were canceled for one reason or another. Here are the canceled Star Wars projects that fans want to see the most.
8 Underworld
The Mandalorian became the first live-action series based on the Star Wars franchise in 2019, but years earlier, George Lucas himself planned to develop a series titled Underworld alongside Star Wars prequels executive producer Rick McCallum. Even though Lucas initially announced the project at the same time as The Clone Wars, concerns about the budget prevented the show from ever being produced. Underworld would have taken place in between the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode VI – A New Hope, and focused on the bounty hunters, crime lords, and smugglers of the Star Wars universe.
7 Detours
Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Seinreich are clearly big Star Wars fans, and made three specials of their popular stop-motion animated show that were completely dedicated to the franchise. After befriending Lucas, the pair was officially hired by Lucasfilm to develop a non-comedy comedy show titled Star Wars Detours that explored the everyday lives of familiar characters within the saga in between the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode VI – A New Hope.
Despite having over 30 episodes completed, Green said that “the way it’s been explained to me is that there hasn’t been enough interest high enough up to go through what it would take to put it out, and that there isn’t an interest in releasing this content on Disney+ from Lucasfilm.”
6 Star Wars 1313
While Star Wars was always intended to be a “family friendly franchise,” LucasArts gaming was interested in making a more mature video game in the galaxy far, far away that would center on the underworld of Coruscant; the proposed concept for Star Wars 1313 shared many of the themes and areas of focus with the plans for Underworld. Production of the game was halted when the LucasArts gaming division was formally folded.
5 The Force Unleashed III
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II ended with a massive cliffhanger, as the clone of Galen Marek (Sam Witwir) and his rebel allies captured Darth Vader. It was teased that Boba Fett was chasing after them, which would presumably set up the premise for a third game in the series that would address Marek’s identity, and whether he was in fact the “real” Starkiller. Amidst the underperformance of the second game and the Disney purchase, The Force Unleashed III never materialized.
4 Rian Johnson’s Star Wars Trilogy
After the critical success of The Last Jedi, Lucasfilm was quick to green light a new trilogy of films under the direction of Rian Johnson. Ironically, Johnson got busy starting a completely different franchise with Knives Out and its sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. In 2022, Johnson said I’m hoping I get to do it again, but nothing is the end of the world until the end of the world actually happens” (via Variety).
3 Obi-Wan Kenobi Film Trilogy
Before the creation of the Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series that saw Ewan McGregor reprising his role as the famous Jedi Master, the same narrative was set to be the basis for a trio of movies under the direction of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close director Stephen Daldry. Considering the mixed reaction that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series received, a film may have been a better way to tell this story.
2 Josh Trank’s Boba Fett Movie
Josh Trank had one of the most interesting rises and falls out of any modern director. Trank had become a hot new commodity following the success of 2012’s Chronicle, but the troubled production of his Fant4stic reboot and the film’s disappointing critical and financial performance essentially tarnished his name. Trank originally was hired to direct a Star Wars film based on Boba Fett’s adventures, which was mysteriously canceled only shortly after Fant4stic was released.
1 The Sword of the Jedi
The original plans for the post-Return of the Jedi timeline of the Star Wars universe significantly changed after Disney relaunched the canon. Originally, author Christie Golding planned to write a trilogy of novels in The Sword of the Jedi series that would have explored the adventures of Ben Skywalker, Luke’s son, following the epic conclusion of the Fate of the Jedi novel series.
