Jon Favreau Says ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 4 Was Originally Going To Tee-Up Grand Admiral Thrawn In ‘Ahsoka’ Season 2

The “Star Wars” franchise and Lucasfilm are in a bit of a transitional period with Disney‘s Bob Iger and Kathleen Kennedy stepping down. What’s interesting is that, leading up to all this shift of studio brass, we’ve been learning from director Jon Favreau, “The Mandalorian & Grogu” was a pivot from “The Mandalorian” Season 4 during the actors’ and writers’ strikes, seeing them pursuing a theatrical effort instead.

Favreau spoke to SFX Magazine (via GamesRadar) in an upcoming issue about how the proposed Season 4 of “The Mandalorian” was aiming to having a Grand Admiral Thrawn plot that would helped to tee-up what Dave Filoni was doing with his second season of “Ahsoka” (where Lars Mikkelsen got the chance to reprise the Thrawn role after voicing the Imperial villain in “Star Wars: Rebels“).

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“It would have heavily linked to Ahsoka season 2. “You can’t just take those scripts and turn them into a movie,” Favreau said of the shifting ideas when they hit pause on Season 4 ideas to focus on the film. “There were a lot of characters, it assumed you’d watched the whole show, and it was teeing up what was happening moving into [the second season of ] Ahsoka. It was about Grand Admiral Thrawn and following the larger storyline [of this era of the Star Wars timeline].”

“This is a completely different medium,” the filmmaker continued, “so I had to start from scratch, essentially. There were certain things I wanted to pursue, like the idea of Grogu being the Mandalorian’s apprentice. As long as you understand the archetypes of this hardened warrior with their vulnerable young apprentice, you’ll know these characters well, even if you’ve never seen the show. But there’s still a lot of Star Wars in there. You’re going to see where things are going [in the wider universe], but that doesn’t diminish from the experience of watching it as a standalone film.”

It remains to be seen if “The Mandalorian & Grogu” will now fill that void meant to be done in Season 4 and include elements or story beats concerning Thrawn, but given the scale of the movie, we wouldn’t be entirely shocked if they try to plant seeds there.

We’re still slightly in the dark about “Ahsoka” Season 2 despite the official addition of prequel actor Hayden Christensen, making his grand return to the franchise as Anakin Skywalker (Force Ghost and flashbacks expected) after appearing in the first batch of episodes and being involved with “Obi-Wan Kenobi” before that. Some of the few things we do know from the finale are that Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren are stranded on Peridea, while Thrawn and Ezra Bridger made their way back to familiar parts of the galaxy.

There was a bit of a shake-up in casting after the tragic death of Ray Stevenson, as “Game of Thrones” alumni Rory McCann took over the role of Baylan Skoll. Others expected to appear in the next run of episodes are Rosario Dawson, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Ivanna Sakhno, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Eman Esfandi, David Tennant, Mikkelsen, and Christensen.

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“The Mandalorian & Grogu” is set to be released on May 22, and Favreau has confirmed that a fourth season of “The Mandalorian” is still in the works, regardless of how audiences react to the theatrical entry.