Jon Favreau to Write, Executive Produce Disney’s First Live-Action Star Wars TV Series

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Jon Favreau to Write, Executive Produce Disney’s First Live-Action Star Wars TV Series

The Star Wars galaxy continues to expand at a dizzying rate, as today Lucasfilm has announced that Emmy-nominated director, producer, actor and writer Jon Favreau will write and executive produce Disney’s live-action Star Wars TV series. The show, which is currently without a title or release date, will live on Disney’s streaming service, set to launch sometime in 2019.

Favreau has a fruitful working relationship with Disney, to say the least. He’s had roles in both the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series and Ron Howard’s forthcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story, in which he voices an “important alien character”—that’s him down below.

Moreover, Favreau helped to launch the biggest thing going in Hollywood nowadays, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, by directing Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and executive producing all of the Iron Man and Avengers films (including the soon-to-debut Infinity War) for Marvel Studios. Since then, he’s directed and produced Disney’s Oscar-winning live-action The Jungle Book, which itself has launched a series of similar reimaginings of Disney classics, including Favreau’s own insanely star-studded adaptation of The Lion King, set for a 2019 release.

“If you told me at 11 years old that I would be getting to tell stories in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn’t have believed you,” said Favreau in a statement. “I can’t wait to embark upon this exciting adventure.”

“I couldn’t be more excited about Jon coming on board to produce and write for the new direct-to-consumer platform,” said Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. “Jon brings the perfect mix of producing and writing talent, combined with a fluency in the Star Wars universe. This series will allow Jon the chance to work with a diverse group of writers and directors and give Lucasfilm the opportunity to build a robust talent base.”

Disney first announced that they were developing a live-action Star Wars series back in November, also promising shows based on Marvel, Pixar’s Monster’s Inc. and Disney Channel’s High School Musical. All of the above will be available on Disney’s streaming service, along with the entire library of Disney classics, the studio’s newest films and a whole lot more.

Although Favreau’s decade-long history with Disney makes him an obvious pick to helm the first-ever live-action Star Wars TV series, he’s also a white man, like everyone else who has ever overseen a Star Wars film. This was not lost on the internet, whose reactions to this morning’s news were a mixture of excitement and disappointment.

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