Star Wars Live-Action TV Show Will Still Happen, Says Disney TV Boss

Although a Star Wars TV show was in development for many years at Lucasfilm, the purchase of the company by Disney in 2012 meant that it was abandoned in place of more theatrical films. Now Disney's TV boss has spoken about the possibility of the franchise heading to the small screen.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Disney/ABC broadcast and entertainment head Ben Sherwood explained that while he believed a live-action Star Wars TV show would eventually happen, it was not imminent.

"Somewhere we hope in a galaxy not too far away there will be a television show that will air on one of our networks," he said. "But I wouldn't get anybody's hopes up too high. They have a lot of movies to make between now and then."

Sherwood also stated that for now the emphasis was on animated shows, such as Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars. "The Star Wars plan rests in the hands of [Disney chairman] Alan Horn, [Lucasfilm president] Kathy Kennedy, and the great folks at Lucasfilm," he said. "We are deep into a very productive relationship with Lucasfilm making Star Wars Rebels. And we are in ongoing conversations with them on what is the next Star Wars animated show."

Last month, ABC entertainment president Channing Dungey also spoke about the possibility of Star Wars heading to TV. "We have had conversations with [Lucasfilm] and will continue to have conversations with them," he said, via EW. "I think it would be wonderful if we could find a way to extend that brand into our programming."

In December last year, Kennedy revealed that Lucasfilm might still use the TV show material that was developed prior to the Disney purchase.

"That's an area we've spent a lot of time, reading through the material that [George Lucas] developed is something we very much would like to explore," she told Slashfilm. "Our attitude is, we don't want to throw any of that stuff away. It's gold. And it's something we're spending a lot of time looking at, pouring through, discussing, and we may very well develop those things further. We definitely want to."

The TV show had a working title of Star Wars: Underworld, and reportedly 50 episodes were written. At the time, producer Rick McCallum described HBO's acclaimed western Deadwood as a major influence, and said that it would be a "complex, dark, and adult" show.