This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away: More Pedro Pascal Scheduling Talk, Disney Proxy Fight and Its ‘Star Wars’ Repercussions
Welcome back to a dialed-down edition of “This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away”. We just went from the busiest week in Star Wars news in months to the quietest. Over the past seven days, we published at SWNN nine articles, and more than half of them were reviews of new Star Wars material. We haven’t fully covered everything that broke over the past few days, as we’ll get to in a second, but on average we’re posting around 15-17 articles every week, just so you get an idea.
We got a big episode of The Bad Batch out this week, and it’s already generated some controversy. Jay, who reviewed it for the site, didn’t appreciate how Asajj Ventress’ return was handled, a topic that was a major point of contention during this Thursday’s SWNN Live! You might also be interested in checking out the new installment of The Timeline Show, in which Tyler and Brian discuss the Battle of Jedha crossover event.
On to the main event…
Three Things That May Have Flown Casual
- Not-so-New Jedi Order?: In a new interview with Screen Rant that was published earlier this month but is just making the rounds now, Daisy Ridley said she’d love to see Finn fulfill the promise of becoming a Jedi, though admitted it is not her decision to make. I’ve long speculated that she’d be instrumental in getting John Boyega back into the role, and also that she’d be producing the new film. From her statements, at least the second part may not be true after all (which is, itself, a bit of an eyebrow-raiser on her team’s part).
- Something to keep an eye on: Remember when Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki said he’d love to do a Star Wars movie? Remember when he Dave Filoni later set up a screening at Lucasfilm of the movie? Well, let us add now a third possibly unrelated event: CAA, the leading talent agency in the biz, has just signed the Japanese filmmaker. Variety reported it as an effort to expand the frontiers of the agency, though I wonder if it’s the other way around. (For the record, it’s not like we need yet another Star Wars movie from a new director announced.)
- They actually did it: Hasbro unveiled this week a bunch of new figures, including a four-pack inspired by characters from The Last Command featuring none other than Luke Skywalker’s evil clone, Luuke. Here’s a question: let’s imagine for a second that Timothy Zahn didn’t write that book in the 90s. Can you imagine the online ridicule of Disney had they created that character for one of the sequels?
This Week, In Star Wars-Adjacent News: Has Pedro Pascal Wrapped on The Last of Us?
As regular readers of this weekly series might know by now, I’ve been tracking down production schedules for most of the upcoming Star Wars titles as well as their adjacent leading people. Well, specifically, Pedro Pascal, whose schedule is a matter of global concern by now as it affects the future of two of the biggest franchises and one of the biggest TV shows in the world. This isn’t necessarily Star Wars-related but I’d like to clarify some of the talk that’s been going around lately.
For those who missed it, Pascal has a pretty busy 2024, as he’s supposed to shoot a new season of HBO’s The Last of Us, a new Marvel movie in Fantastic Four, he’s the voice of the leading character in Lucasfilm’s The Mandalorian. & Grogu, and he’s shooting at least two A24 movies. So what’s going on, exactly?
Pascal started shooting in mid-February season 2 of The Last of Us, which adapts Naughty Dog’s 2020 sequel game — or at least part of it. As it’s widely known by now (and I won’t get into story specifics here, so no spoiler alert needed), Pascal’s Joel has a smaller role in the sequel, and by extension, the actor will have a reduced presence in the second season of the show, which will likely adapt the second game as faithfully as the first season adapted Part I.
If so, Pascal’s role is mostly limited to the prologue of the story, which, if I were to guess, is what they were shooting for the first four weeks of production. All roads of that prologue lead to a scene that features a cast of characters that were coincidentally announced by HBO at the beginning of the month — and even more coincidentally (can I be more ironic here?), Pascal was required on the set of Ari Aster’s Eddington just a week after that announcement.
A week or so ago, Daniel Richtman posted on his Patreon page that Pascal had wrapped his part in The Last of Us season 2, which caused the Internet to freak out (if someone can logically explain to me why, I’d appreciate it!) This was definitely not news to those of us who’d seen some of those Eddington set pictures. But when asked to comment by IGN, HBO denied that Pascal was done. So what is happening here?
Pascal is very much done, for the time being at least. His commitments are elsewhere at the moment, as Eddington is probably going to be a two-month shoot, and right up next he has Celine Song’s Materialists going up in New York (a long way from the Vancouver-set production of TLOU.) So why is HBO saying otherwise? I believe this is simply a case of a broken telephone game. My guess is that Pascal has wrapped shooting the prologue, which is where most, but not all, of his scenes are. He still has a few more spaced out throughout the game, which he’ll likely get to at a later point.
To recap: Eddington is happening now, Materialists starts in May, The Mandalorian & Grogu in mid-June, and Fantastic Four sometime in August or September. They will also have to accommodate Pascal’s press tour for Gladiator 2, but that’s an issue for another day. Richtman said that The Last of Us is set to wrap around August, which seems a bit early for me considering the scope of the story, but they could make it work.
My guess is that in between Materialists and whenever Fantastic Four starts in London, Pascal will be visiting both Manhattan Beach for The Mandalorian & Grogu and Vancouver for The Last of Us‘ leftover scenes (also known as the best of the game!)
This Next Week, In Star Wars-Adjacent News: Understanding the Disney Proxy Fight Against Nelson Peltz
If you’ve been reading entertainment news headlines for the past few months, you may at least have encountered the name Nelson Peltz. Here’s what’s going on: Peltz, a Palm Beach 80-year-old billionaire, is staging a coup against the Disney board (and not, as he’s said once again, CEO Bob Iger) and has been buying enough voting power and some alliances among top-Disney investors in an attempt to get elected into the board. In fact, he wants two seats: one for him, and one for former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo.
On Wednesday, April 3, Disney is hosting its annual shareholder meeting where a vote will take place to let Peltz and Rasulo in, and kick current board members Michael Froman and Maria Elena Lagomasino out — or fend off the activist investors. Why is this important? Well, Peltz argues that Disney has lost its magic, and is pointing to some of the weak links that the company has shown in recent years, from over-budget productions that lost tens of millions of dollars to the overall issue of the stock price being way below where it should be.
The problem here, though, is that Peltz, plus another smaller activist investor, Blackwells Capital, which is also trying to get in the game, are pointing to the problems at the company but not offering real solutions (other than “spend less, charge people more”). Despite that, though, there is a real chance that they might get voted into the board, which is why Bob Iger has turned this into one of the most expensive proxy fights in history, according to The New York Times. He’s also enlisted every possible big shareholder’s endorsement, including his (I guess former?) predecessor, Michael Eisner, and George Lucas himself.
So will this have any effect on Star Wars? Probably not. I don’t think, despite Iger’s spending, that Peltz will get a board seat, let alone two. But Iger knows he’s weak at this point, and he needs time to execute the plan he laid out over a year ago and can’t afford any miscalculations. Peltz has enlisted some endorsements that are wary of Iger’s succession problem.
Should Peltz get the two board seats, he could become a real problem for Iger and start questioning his decisions, especially when it comes to spending on big shows. For instance, and even if it’s probably unrealistic at this point to think about, I don’t believe he’s a big fan of what the cast of The Acolyte looks like, and if that show doesn’t blow up for Disney Plus, he’d probably start questioning pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars into it. The same goes for the New Jedi Order film made by a filmmaker who’s been widely criticized by the Fox News roster of hosts.
In terms of what else to expect from Wednesday’s call, I doubt much will come for Star Wars. Iger does like to use these investor meetings to announce stuff like he just did last quarter, but I firmly believe they are saving big announcements (like the official release calendar or cast members for New Jedi Order) for August’s D23 convention in Anaheim. Just in case, though, keep an eye on StarWarsNewsNet.com on Wednesday!
Jocasta Nu’s Reading List
- SWNN: Nate reviewed this week John Jackson Miller’s new book The Living Force (which also dropped a new excerpt to build on that momentum). Lovely piece of writing by our head of Star Wars publishing on what seems to be a lovely piece of writing by one of the top Star Wars authors.
- Bloomberg: Spain’s economy and The Mandalorian are teaming up for this interesting piece by Clara Hernanz Lizarraga and Ainhoa Goyeneche.
- Collider: Does Star Wars need Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron movie right now? I’d say no, but Ryan Looney disagrees, so check it out if you’re interested!
- Game Rant: We have a series of AAA games titled Star Wars Jedi — but should we have Star Wars Sith games too? Here is Josh Cotts’ argument for it.
- Yardbarker: Chris Morgan lists 20 facts you may not know about Revenge of the Sith.
- The Tech Edvocate: Matthew Lynch believes, like many of us, that the best scene in The Mandalorian is when Din Djarin took off his helmet to say farewell to Grogu. But will the series ever replicate such a moment?
What did you think of the latest edition of “This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away”? Let me know your thoughts and suggestions down below in the comment section. You can also send them, or reach out with any information tips, directly via our Contact page.
Have a great week!
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.
