Report: The Obi-Wan Kenobi series has been put on hold; Lucasfilm is looking for a new writer

From The Hollywood Reporter:

“Disney+ and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars series centered on Obi-Wan Kenobi has been put on hold as the companies attempt a retooling, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. The series, which sees Ewan McGregor reprise his role of the famed Jedi Knight, was in the throes of pre-production.

It had Hossein Amini writing and a director in Deborah Chow, who became the first-ever female Star Wars director thanks to her work on Disney+’s buzzy Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. Sources say that the show was even screen-testing actors opposite McGregor.

Sources tell THR that the scripts – only two were written – and story became an issue and that the entire package has been jettisoned. Lucasfilm is now on the hunt for a new writer to pen the series. At the same time, sources say the series is being reconfigured from being six episodes to four episodes.

It is unclear when the show would ramp up again although insiders stress that McGregor remains attached to star and Chow remains as director. Disney had no comment.

The development follows social media rumors a week ago that the series was cancelled. Those posts proved premature but did expose the series was facing problems.

It is unclear why scripts became an issue so late in the process. One source said the Kenobi story treaded similar ground as Mandalorian, seeing the Jedi master lending a protective hand to a young Luke and perhaps even a young Leia, perhaps mirroring how the Mandalorian took Baby Yoda under his protective custody. […]”

From GameSpot:

“Earlier, reports emerged suggesting that the Obi-Wan Disney Plus series, announced last August, was running into problems. Insiders close to the project said that the series was on indefinite hold, and that crew was being sent home. Now, the series’ star has dismissed the rumors that this had anything to do with the show’s quality.

The Disney Plus series will see Ewan McGregor return to the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which he previously played in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. GameSpot managed to catch up with Ewan McGregor at an event promoting the upcoming Birds of Prey, which he stars in as bad guy Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask. Naturally, we asked him about what’s happening with the Obi-Wan series, and he denied that anyone was unhappy with the scripts.

“We just pushed to the beginning of next year,” McGregor says, adding that “the scripts were really good,” and that he had seen “90% of the writing.”

“There’s all this bullsh*t about creative differences and all that stuff, none of it true,” he says, commenting directly on the rumors. “None of it’s true; they just pushed the dates…they had more time to read the stuff that had been written (after Episode IX), and they felt like they wanted to do more work on it.” Everything is, McGregor says, “not nearly as dramatic as it sounds online.”

He says they’ll start shooting in January 2021, and they don’t want to move the release date–which has not been officially announced. “It gives them more time to write, make the scripts even better,” he says. […]”