“Willow” TV series creator Jon Kasdan says he remains hopeful that a second season of the fantasy series could still happen, despite Disney+ seemingly announcing the show’s cancellation this week.
The series takes place in the years after the events of the original 1988 film and introduces new characters to the world played by Ellie Bamber, Ruby Cruz, Erin Kellyman, Amer Chadha-Patel and Tony Revolori. They joined returnee Warwick Davis as the title character.
Kasdan wrote the pilot and served as co-showrunner alongside Wendy Mericle whilst Ron Howard, Kathleen Kennedy and Michelle Rejwan executive produce.
Following this week’s announcement, Kasdan took to social media yesterday to post a lengthy statement reassuring fans that a second season has already been written and he hopes that it will eventually air. However, he warns it will be at least a year away before production could begin:
“I feel fairly confident that, if asked, neither I nor the folks at Lucasfilm, would or have actually characterized it quite that way [as a cancellation]. A decision was made last week to release our main cast for other series opportunities that may arise for them in the coming year.
With all the TV and movies in production around the world, it feels unfair to limit an actor’s availability without a clear sense of when you’re going to need them again.
It’s further trivialized by the simple reality that the scripts we’ve been working on require just as many actors (from our first season) with whom no such contractual hold exists.
Nothing prevented Annabelle Davis, for example, from taking another show, but you better believe Mims appears in every single Volume II chapter.”
This suggests that should the series continue, it will unlikely be in its current form seeing as the cast has been released. The property remains an important IP in the Lucasfilm library though and could be revisited down the line.
Kasdan adds that there’s a slowdown in the production of streaming shows across the entire industry right now which is why the series couldn’t resume filming in the next twelve months.
The slowdown can be sourced to a combination of factors including the economic downturn, looming potential writers’ strike, and numerous streaming services rethinking their strategies moving forward with a desire to release less content of better quality.
“Willow” launched to decent reviews with an 83% from critics and 66% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to the 53%/79% of its 1988 film predecessor. You can read Kasdan’s full statement on Twitter.
