It wasn’t that long ago that reports of one James Mangold and one Robert Rodriguez joining the live-action “Star Wars” series, “The Mandalorian” started spreading online. While Mangold actually took to social media to debunk the story, Rodriguez kept quiet about it. It turns out, those early reports may have been at least half-true, as the director reportedly did join the new season and directed at least one episode of “The Mandalorian.”
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HN Entertainment was the first to report the rumors of Rodriguez joining the Disney+ show, and /Film says to have confirmed it independently. Though it isn’t clear if the director worked in a single episode of more.
What we do know is that Robert Rodriguez has been friends with “The Mandalorian” showrunner Jon Favreau for a while, even appearing in Favreau’s “The Chef Show” on Netflix. Of course, there’s also the shared experience of indie filmmakers turning into blockbuster directors. And given some of the other directors that joined season 1 like Taika Waititi who has a similar background, it only makes sense for the director of both “Desperado” and “Alita: Battle Angel” to take a crack at directing Baby Yoda.
Rodriguez is no stranger to large-scale blockbusters, having directed the aforementioned “Alita” for producer James Cameron and having also created the “Spy Kids” franchise. Though details on the new season of “The Mandalorian” are scarce, we recently found out that Rosario Dawson will be joining the cast as a live-action version of Ahsoka Tano, the fan-favorite character from the animated show “The Clone Wars” and we do know that Giancarlo Esposito who plays Moff Gideon, talked about exciting action scenes that will take place in the upcoming season, saying there will be “major, major, epic, epic lightsaber action happening on this show.” Given what we last saw of his character and the casting report, we’re bound for something special.
Though Disney hasn’t talked about whether the coronavirus pandemic has or will affect production, season 2 of “The Mandalorian” is set to premiere on Disney+ this fall.