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Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars show will be called The Mandalorian

Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars show will be called The Mandalorian

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Dave Filoni, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Taika Waititi will also direct episodes of the series

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Image: Lucasfilm

Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars TV show for Disney’s streaming service finally has a name and a plot: The Mandalorian. In a post to his official Facebook and Instagram pages, Favreau posted a brief synopsis that offers a glimpse into what we might expect for the show, which will follow a Mandalorian gunslinger in the years following Return of the Jedi.

There have been rumors in recent weeks that the show would be about the warrior culture exemplified by bounty hunters like Jango and Boba Fett. Favreau’s synopsis confirms that the show will follow one such renegade — but not, it seems Boba Fett.

That’s a vague synopsis, but it fits with what’s been revealed about the show thus far. Disney tapped Favreau, who directed Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and appeared in The Clone Wars and Solo, to helm the show back in March. In a later update, StarWars.com revealed the first image from the series, showing off its titular character, a Mandalorian clad in brown armor.

Lucasfilm’s update also revealed the directors behind the show. While it doesn’t appear that Favreau will be behind the camera for the series, there is an impressive set of directors lined up: Dave Filoni, who created The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and Star Wars Resistance, will direct live action for the first time in his career, while Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Bryce Dallas Howard (Solemates), and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) will direct other episodes. Casting for the show hasn’t been revealed just yet.

Production began earlier this week, teasing a familiar-looking desert planet. The Mandalorians are an incredibly popular segment of the Star Wars universe, featured in several now non-canon novels, and with a good amount of screen time during The Clone Wars.

Favreau already has a connection to the Mandalorians from The Clone Wars

Interestingly, Favreau already has a connection to the Mandalorians: he voiced a character named Pre Vizsla in The Clone Wars, who tried to overthrow his home planet’s government by allying himself and his followers with the Confederacy during the conflict. But the show won’t follow that character — he died during the show at the hands of Darth Maul. And while it doesn’t look like The Mandalorian will be about Boba Fett, there were reports that a film about him is in the works. Prior to Solo’s release earlier this summer, word broke that Logan director James Mangold was developing a standalone film featuring the bounty hunter.

Disney’s streaming service is expected to arrive next year, and The Mandalorian is one of several original projects that are expected to launch at the same time. Disney is also putting quite a bit of backing behind this project, which reportedly cost around $100 million for ten episodes. While Lucasfilm has launched several animated shows, an ongoing, live-action Star Wars television show hasn’t been done before, and it comes at a time when Disney has been reevaluating its tempo for pacing the franchise’s release schedule.

Update, October 4th 2018, 7:45PM ET: Updated to include Lucasfilm’s director announcements and photo reveal.