The success of The Mandalorian on Disney Plus, coupled to rumors that season 2 of the show will reintroduce key characters from the Star Wars universe, has seemingly sent the rumor mill into overdrive on what's coming next. Two reports from the past few days have focused on possible live-action debuts of other notable Star Wars icons, and they both raise an eyebrow.
The first is Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character with a long history in the Star Wars universe. Originally introduced in the Thrawn trilogy of books by Timothy Zahn starting in 1991, the character was then reintroduced into Disney's Star Wars continuity via the animated series Rebels. Zahn has since written more books featuring the character, who's a Star Wars fan favorite villain.
According to The DIS Insider (via writer Daniel Richtman), Disney is looking to cast a live-action Thrawn for use in future Star Wars projects, with the report mentioning a rumor that it could be for his own series. And, that's all there is to it.
The other recent story comes from The Illuminerdi, which claims Disney is looking to cast a live-action version of Ezra Bridger from the animated series Star Wars: Rebels, played by an actor in their 30s-40s. While the report doesn't cite which project the casting is for, it does suggest the project will be on Disney Plus.
Nothing has been said on either matter by Lucasfilm, of course, so treat both as wild rumors and nothing more for now.
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Why we're not convinced
There's a whole industry of Star Wars rumors on the internet. Previous reports about Boba Fett and Ahsoka Tano turning up in The Mandalorian season 2 felt more convincing because they came from the Hollywood Reporter, a long-established film industry publication with demonstrably spot-on sources.
Indeed, the outlet has a recent confirmed scoop, in that it revealed Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland is making a series for Disney Plus. Lucasfilm then formally announced that series on May the 4th 2020, also known as Star Wars Day. That suggests what we've learned about the cool cameos in The Mandalorian's next set of episodes is pretty airtight.
In the case of these newer rumors, we're reticent to believe them. It's not impossible Lucasfilm wants to bring more elements of the wider Star Wars universe to its Disney Plus shows, given that the universe is managed through one unified Lucasfilm Story Group. There are just a lot of stories like this on the internet.
Disney Plus already has four confirmed Star Wars series in the works: The Mandalorian, Headland's untitled series and the two spin-off shows focused on Obi-Wan Kenobi and Rogue One's Cassian Andor.
