Darth Maul has always been the “Star Wars” franchise’s great inevitability: a character introduced as a blunt instrument of fear, torn apart, and then—through sheer spite—stitched back into the canon as something stranger and more dangerous than a straightforward villain.
And now that inevitability had a new pulse today, with the first trailer tease for “Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord” finally going public—an official step forward after the project’s early, in-room-only preview at Star Wars Celebration Japan back in April 2025.
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Because, yes: Maul didn’t stay dead after “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” Obi-Wan Kenobi cut him in half, left him for dead, and Maul still crawled back into the story later in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” driven by revenge and reconstructed through a grotesque mix of survival and cybernetics—eventually enduring long enough to become a recurring threat across “Star Wars Rebels,” and even popping up in “Solo: A Star Wars Story” as a crime-lord figure operating in the shadows.
The key distinction with “Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord” is placement. The series was set around a year after the end of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” during the reign of the Galactic Empire—squarely in that volatile stretch before Maul’s later appearances in “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and “Star Wars Rebels.” It’s the “how did he get there?” chapter: the messy, early-Imperial construction phase, not the already-established underworld operator.
Created by Dave Filoni for Disney+, the animated series followed the former Sith as he plotted to rebuild his criminal syndicate—specifically on a planet “untouched by the Empire,” per the official logline—while he trained a new apprentice.
Sam Witwer returns to voice Maul, reprising the performance that became definitive across animation and beyond. Gideon Adlon voices Devon Izara, recent Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Wagner Moura plays Brander Lawson, and Richard Ayoade does the voice for Two-Boots; the latter duo will also feature in a Marvel Comics prequel series set on Janix beginning this March.
Lucasfilm Animation handles production, with Matt Michnovetz as head writer and Brad Rau as supervising director (Athena Yvette Portillo among the project’s executive producers).
Here’s the official synopsis:
Beginning with a two-episode premiere on Disney+ April 6, 2026, and two episodes each week leading to a finale on Star Wars Day, May the 4th, ‘Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord’ picks up after the events of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, for a pulpy adventure that finds Maul plotting to rebuild his criminal syndicate on a planet untouched by the Empire. There, he crosses paths with a disillusioned young Jedi Padawan who may just be the apprentice he is seeking to aid him in his relentless pursuit for revenge.
“Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord” premieres on Disney+ on April 6, 2026. Watch the first trailer below.
