Lucasfilm Originally Planned an Obi-Wan Movie Trilogy

“there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make…”

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series proved to be a big hit with fans around the world. It even broke viewership records for Disney+. However, there has been an argument that the show’s plot could have made it into a standalone film. Well, it turns out, that was the original plan, and it wasn’t just one outing with the Jedi Knight front and centre either.

Speaking to The Direct, writer Stuart Beattie gave more details about the planned trilogy for the character and how it all fell apart. For those who don’t know, Stephen Daldry and Hossein Amini were originally brought in to direct and write the first film respectively. From there, the film was found it’s way to becoming a series with the introduction of Disney+, with writer Joby Harold brought in as head writer for the story that was eventually directed by Deborah Chow over a six episode run.

Below are Beattie’s comments about his original involvement and how Solo actually changed the format of Obi-Wan’s story:

I wrote the film that they based the show on. So, yeah. I spent like a year, year-and-a-half working on it. And then, when the decision was made not to make any more spin-off films after Solo came out, I left the project and went on to other things. Joby came on and took my scripts and turned it from two hours into six. So, I did not work with them at all, I just got credit for the episodes because it was all my stuff.

So, thanks to 2018’s Solo being a bad fan response and box office performance, we didn’t get to see Kenobi again on the big screen.

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Beattie also spoke of how he had originally pitched a trilogy to Lucasfilm, with the first film centring on the story we seen in the series, and the second dealing with Kenobi’s willingness to sacrifice himself, which nods heavily to A New Hope:

So when I pitched my Obi-Wan story to Lucasfilm, I said, ‘There’s actually three stories here. Because there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make in order to go from Obi-Wan to Ben.’ And the first one was the first movie, which was the show, which was, ‘Surrender to the will of the Force. Transport your will, surrender your will. Leave the kid alone.’ So then, the second [movie] was thinking about where Kenobi ends up. And one of the most powerful and probably the most powerful moment in all of Obi-Wan’s story is that moment where he sacrifices himself in A New Hope. Great moment, you know, makes you cry. But, if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty sudden thing, to just kind of go be fighting a guy, to see Luke and go, ‘I’m gonna die.’ You know, that to me, that required forethought. That required pre-acceptance that this was going to happen.

The writer continues by going into depth about how the second instalment would have led to Kenobi’s ultimate sacrifice:

So again, it’s one of those universal things we all struggle with, to come to terms with our own mortality. So, that was the second step of the evolution for me, that Obi-Wan now has to come to terms with his own mortality, somehow in a prophecy, or Qui-Gon telling him, ‘There’s going to come a moment where you’re gonna have to sacrifice yourself for the good,’ And then [Obi-Wan] is like, ‘What? No, no, no, no, I’m here to help… I can’t, no.’ And get him to that point where Obi Wan has accepted the idea that he’s going to die, and that he’s going to die willingly at a crucial moment, and you will know when that moment presents itself. So that when that moment comes up in [A New Hope], you understand. He’s recognizing he’s been on this journey already, and he’s waiting for this moment, and that’s how he’s able to make it so easily. To do this [sacrifice], and die. So that to me was the second evolution, the second film, the second story. So for me, if I have anything to do with the second season of Obi Wan, that’s the character evolution that I would take him on. That, to me, is really interesting. And like I said, universal.

The worst bit? Ewan McGregor and Lucasfilm were all on board for the trilogy. Hopefully, if the series gets the nod for a second season, we’ll get what Beattie has described.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is currently available to stream on Disney+.