Rumor: ‘Star Wars’ Project Codenamed ‘Ghost Track 17’, From Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, Going Into Production Soon
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are not slowing down their Star Wars output. According to the publication Production Weekly (via r/StarWarsLeaks), the two are listed as executive producers on a new project that could go into production soon with the working title Ghost Track 17. Little else is known about it for now, but there are a few remarks to be made here. First and foremost, though, keep in mind that the specific information is being kept behind a paywall, so we’re going off of what other people are saying is in there.
Production Weekly has turned out to be highly unreliable over the past few months, especially when it comes to projects that are not immediately going into shooting. Just in 2022, they had listed Taika Waititi’s Star Wars movie to begin filming in the last quarter of the year in Los Angeles; Ahsoka changed filming dates several times (as did The Acolyte); and The Mandalorian season 4 went from filming in September of 2022 to early 2023.
Speaking of which, there’s a possibility that Ghost Track 17 is simply the working title of the fourth season of Din Djarin’s show, which Jon Favreau has been writing for several months now (in previous seasons, it went by the name “Huckleberry”, but it wouldn’t be the first time they change these names to keep secrets under wraps). In fact, Bespin Bulletin reported in late 2022 to be hearing whispers about the new season gearing into production shortly after Skeleton Crew wrapped. Lucasfilm has been hiding several projects behind a thick wall around the Manhattan Beach soundstages, where Favreau and Filoni have been almost uninterruptedly filming projects since September 2021 (first The Mandalorian season 3, and then, after a two-month gap, Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew filmed there simultaneously, sometimes even in the same stage).
Since they were able to keep Skeleton Crew under wraps for so long, as well as The Book of Boba Fett, it is entirely possible that they also have a new Mandalorian spin-off show in development that they haven’t announced yet. Even the working title seems to be a reference to that — “ghost tracks” are songs inside a new record that aren’t included in the tracklist. Moreover, Bespin Bulletin even speculated that the name could be a wink at the Beatles album Abbey Road, where 16 tracks were listed but that actually included a 17th “ghost track” named Her Majesty. Favreau himself has referred to George Lucas as The Beatles, with he and Filoni simply being DJs playing The Beatles; he also tried to get Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to appear in his 2016 version of The Jungle Book.
There is even one last possibility, though it’s definitely the least likely option. A rumor from the past few days by World of Reel mentioned that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Star Wars movie, which was co-written by Damon Lindelof, might be heading into production this April. We know that Dave Filoni visited the writers’ room set up by Lucasfilm last summer to brainstorm ideas for the movie (and possibly more projects down the line). It’s possible that Filoni, who is also an executive creative director at Lucasfilm, will be a producer or executive producer on the project, and he might have even brought his Mandalorian buddy Jon Favreau along. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the two will be heavily involved with the new film, though.
The main takeaway here should be that we know nothing about this, or even if it’s a real thing. So far, this is highly reminiscent of the first news we got a year ago about a supposed new project codenamed “Grammar Rodeo”, which turned out to be Jon Watts’ Skeleton Crew, so there is a precedent in recent memory for Favreau and Filoni coming up with a new Mandalorian spin-off out of the blue. In fact, Production Weekly was also one of the first outlets to include the name “Grammar Rodeo”, so they could be on to something again.
We will surely get to the bottom of this over the next few weeks, so stay tuned for more!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
