Jon Favreau Hints At Potential “Star Wars” Exit

“The Mandalorian” show co-creator Jon Favreau has hinted that he may not have much more of a future with the “Star Wars” universe.

Favreau has spent much of the past decade immersed in the franchise since it was announced in 2018 he had created and would serve as showrunner on a live-action “Star Wars” television series titled “The Mandalorian” for the Disney+ service.

Since then, he’s steered that series through three seasons, and the upcoming “The Mandalorian and Grogu” movie which he directed. Out promoting the film, he reflected on his time with the series and tells Polygon:

“I’ve been working on Star Wars now for seven years, and to be able to step up to doing it as a film feels like a culmination of what I’m working on.”

That description of it being a culmination has prompted speculation that he could step back after its release. Favreau’s future with the franchise remains unknown, but if he exits it sounds like it’ll be on his terms.

With the new film, he says the big challenge is delivering an experience worthy of a giant screen and getting people to sit still for two hours without distraction:

“The challenge becomes: Okay, we presented a cinematic experience on the small screen. We have to up our game now to the movie theater. That means taller aspect ratios for IMAX, building sets that take full advantage of that, making the visual effects of the quality and caliber that we have to notch everything up. And then the storytelling as well.

That adventure has to fill up the screen and has to be something — at this moment in time, when so much is competing for attention — that you’re going to stop what you’re doing, and you’re going to go to a movie theater, and you’re going to sit down in that movie theater, and you’re not going to be able to pause it, and you’re not going to be able to eat the food out of your refrigerator. You have to have such a good experience that you say, ‘This is worth my time. Let’s go again. I want to bring you. You should go see it.’”

The project, which marks the first theatrical “Star Wars” release since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” premiered in 2019, opens on May 22nd. The new trailer for the film arrives tomorrow, check out a brief teaser unveiled today.