Tony Gilroy has been working on the new Lucasfilm and Disney+ live-action series “Andor” for over three years. The prequel to Gareth Edwards “Rogue One” follows Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) during the five years before the events of that particular film. During a Television Critics Association virtual panel, The Playlist asked Gilroy to clarify just how many seasons will cover what was consistently referred to as a “five-year journey.” In doing so, the Oscar nominee provided a revealing breakdown of the show’s second season.
“We are covering one year in our first 12 episodes that we’ve completed,” Gilroy says. “In fact, we’re finishing our final mix on 12 tomorrow. We are going to do another 12 episodes starting in November and our organizing principle for our shooting is we do blocks of three. Directors come in for blocks of three. So, last year we were looking at the difficulty of doing five years which would take us the next thirty years.”
Gilroy says that answer was “elegantly” right in front of them.
“We’re going to take our four blocks of three in the second half of the show and each block of three is going to represent a year closer,” Gilroy says. “And I have to say, as a writer, I’ve been writing dramatic stories for way too long, 30, 40 years. And I’ve never had the opportunity to ‘so we’re gonna jump a year’ [with a project]. We’ve built it up. We’re very excited about it. We get to take the formative forging of Cassian Andor in the first 12 episodes and then we get to take that organism that we’ve built up and we get to run it through the next four years in a very exciting narrative fashion. Our final scene of the show, our 24th episode, will walk you directly into the first scenes of ‘Rogue One.'”
For Luna, it’s almost unfathomable to imagine doing more than two seasons after the workload he’s already endured for the show’s first 12 episodes.
“It makes complete sense, no? Otherwise, the last three seasons would have to be animation,” Luna jokes. “I wouldn’t be able to be part of them. It’s a long process. I’ll tell you one thing. When we talked about it at the very beginning like many years ago, yeah, you think ‘Yeah, we’re gonna do [multiple] seasons’ but once you finish one you realize what it means. I’m gonna blame someone here, and it’s Tony, we didn’t do a season of something we did four films. Four films with that intensity, that complexity, that rigorous work that pays attention to every detail? It’s impossible for anyone to think about doing this for five seasons. It would be 15 years of your life. I don’t think anyone could be ready for that. This idea is very strong and it is something we see as possible. I’m so excited we are doing and we are doing it already. We have to start now or people would be waiting ages for season two.”
Additionally, Gilroy noted that fans may need to be patient if they are hoping some other characters from “Rogue One” will appear during the first season. That means if you’re hoping Alan Tudyk‘s K-2SO droid returns you’ll have to “wait and see.”
“Andor” debuts on Disney+ on September 21.