At a gathering of the Television Critics Association on Thursday, ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey confirmed that the network has been having conversations with Lucasfilm about a possible primetime Star Wars television series. “As a fan, I would absolutely love to say yes,” Dungey said in response to a question about a possible Star Wars series, according to Variety. “We have had conversations, and we will continue to have conversations with Lucasfilm. It would be wonderful to extend the franchise.”
Dungey wouldn’t give too many specifics about any potential new series, including whether it would be live-action or when it would be set in the Star Wars universe: “It’s all a little hush-hush. [Lucasfilm] exists under a big shroud of secrecy.” But Star Wars already has an animated series, Star Wars Rebels, on ABC’s Disney XD, so a new live-action series seems like it would be more appropriate, and George Lucas had even been developing such a series years ago: Star Wars: Underworld, set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. But the show, about the seedy underbelly of the rebellion, never materialized, though Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy said as recently as 2015 that the company was still looking at the material.
So, will we get Underworld after all? According to Dungey, ABC has no official timeline, let alone a definitive subject matter, so an eventual live-action series might be a long way off. In the meantime, fans aren’t exactly starved for new material: In addition to Rebels and a new LEGO animated show, Disney has Rogue One, Episodes 8 and 9, potentially a whole Han Solo trilogy, and a rumored Boba Fett stand-alone.
Also, let’s not forget (much as we might want to) that there have in fact been live-action television productions of Star Wars in the past, including the notorious Holiday Special and two Ewok adventures, so if you really can’t wait for whatever ABC has in the works, you can always take a journey on the Caravan of Courage.
