Unmade Lucas Star Wars Series Had Over 60 Scripts
Former Star Wars producer Rick McCallum has said that over 60 scripts were written for the unmade series and that it would have been dark, sexy and violent.
The former producer recently appeared on the Young Indy Chronicles Podcast in which he discussed the unmade series and it’s plans.
I think we had over 60 scripts, third draft scripts. The most wonderful writers in the world on it. Phenomenal group of talent.
The series had the working title Star Wars Underworld and would have taken place between Star Wars Episodes III and Episode IV. When it was first announced by George Lucas at Celebration III in 2005 the hope by the director was to make a 100 hour series. It would have focused on new and lessor know characters with some episodes even bringing Darth Vader into the fray to crack down on an uprising happening on Coruscant.
Unfortunately, such a large scale series at the time would have been too expensive to make according to McCallum.
The problem was that each episode was bigger than the films, so the lowest I could get it down to with the technology that existed then was $40 million an episode.
One of the writers for the series, Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek fame, also spoke recently about the series on The Sackhoff Show podcast. The writer mentioned that he wrote two scripts for the series. At one point even getting into a friendly argument with Lucas over the characterization of Darth Vader.
All hope for the series faded when Disney bought Star Wars in 2012. Disney has likely incorporated many ideas from these scripts and stories into their own Star Wars series over the years. The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett for example. A teaser image for the series with a 2009 release date featured Boba Fett’s helmet, rumored to appear. Other stories from the series such as Han Solo and Chewbacca’s first meeting and Lando Calrissian losing the Millennium Falcon would also appear in the Disney made Star Wars movie Solo: A Star Wars Story.
While Star Wars series are a common thing nowadays the thought of an epic, big budget Star Wars TV show back in the 2000s blew my mind. Would you have liked to see Star Wars Underworld?
