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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was originally supposed to be a movie

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Jude Law sits in a starship's pilot seat in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.
Matt Kennedy / Lucasfilm

Lucasfilm is on the verge of debuting its second live-action Star Wars series of the year, Skeleton Crew. Set after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, the show follows a group of adventure-seeking kids who end up stranded in space with a starship of unknown origin and are joined on their journey home by a mysterious, potentially untrustworthy adult Force-user (Jude Law). The new series comes from the minds of Christopher Ford and Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts, and it has the potential to be the Disney+ hit that Lucasfilm has been in desperate need of over the past two years.

As well-suited as it may seem for the studio’s Disney+ model, though, Skeleton Crew was originally pitched to Lucasfilm years ago as a movie, Watts recently revealed. “I pitched it right after the first Spider-Man [Homecoming] movie. It was initially pitched to Lucasfilm as a film, and then I had to go make two Spider-Man movies, because the first one did all right,” the filmmaker told TVLine. “Over time, [Jon] Favreau made The Mandalorian and Disney+ came into existence, so it evolved, as the Spider-Man movies were being made, into a show.”

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According to Watts, Skeleton Crew‘s unexpected evolution gave him and Ford the chance to dive into the show’s story and world more extensively than they’d originally intended (or imagined). “That gave us more time to explore the galaxy and get into this world of piracy and have a little bit more fun with it,” Watts explained. “And once I finished the third Spider-Man movie [No Way Home], we could finally get to work making it.”

Skeleton Crew isn’t the only Star Wars TV show to begin as a movie. 2022’s Obi-Wan Kenobi was also originally pitched and developed as a feature film, but Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s disappointing box office performance in 2018 forced Lucasfilm to reconsider its plans at the time. Despite the change, Obi-Wan Kenobi was still largely well-received when it aired on Disney+. Now, fans can only hope that Skeleton Crew manages to pull off the same feat as well as — if not better — than its Star Wars predecessor did two years ago.

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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premieres at 6 p.m. PT on Monday, December 2, on Disney+.

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Alex Welch
Alex Welch
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