Now that Andor has finished its two-season run to universal acclaim, fans have been thinking about what’s next for Star Wars TV shows. Granted, we’ve got plenty to look forward to, such as an upcoming Ahsoka season 2, and several Star Wars movies in development, but there’s still hope — however small — that Disney looks to a project shelved a long time ago, from a concept far, far away.
The Lucasfilm of 2005 was a different beast compared to where we are now in 2025. Soon after the debut of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, creator George Lucas announced at an event that the franchise’s first live-action foray into TV would be Underworld. Set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, this series was meant to delve into a Star Wars world that didn’t revolve around the Skywalkers. Instead, it would have been based in the cityscape of Coruscant, initially focusing on the criminal gangs, before delving into untold stories of known characters.
Lucasfilm was bought by the Walt Disney Company in 2012, and with it, everything to do with Star Wars was now in someone else’s hands. This also meant that some changes were made, such as Underworld being cancelled, along with its video game adaptation, Star Wars: 1313. But what was Star Wars Underworld? Who was involved, and how far into production did it get?
What was Star Wars Underworld?
In 2005, it looked like the end of the road for Star Wars, with no more movies or live-action shows on the horizon. It felt like Lucas and his company wanted to move on, with the team beginning to work on the then-unannounced fourth Indiana Jones movie. So it was a surprise when Underworld was announced in 2005, alongside The Clone Wars. Allegedly set between Episode III and IV, with some occasional flashback episodes, the series would delve into aspects of the Star Wars universe that hadn’t been explored before, such as different criminal factions operating across Coruscant. Underworld would be serialized episodes, with roughly twenty of them to a season, and would be full of special effects, as the prequels were.
Rick McCallum, a producer at Lucasfilm until his retirement in 2012, soon after Disney bought it, appeared on a podcast earlier this year called Young Indy Chroniclers. In this three-part interview show, McCallum recalled how far Underworld came in development. “There was a period where people thought we weren’t doing anything. And we spent five years doing over 60 scripts, some reaching third drafts, with the most wonderful writers in the world on them,” McCallum revealed.
“These stories were dark. But they were sexy, they were violent, they made you think, and they were just absolutely wonderful.”
In an interview with writer Matthew Graham at Den of Geek, he reveals that from 2007, for several years, he and Chris Chibnall (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) would visit Skywalker Ranch and work on several scripts for Underworld. Ronald D. Moore, known for writing Star Trek and the Battlestar Galactica reboot, was also brought on soon after. Moore spoke about this in actor Katee Sackhoff’s podcast earlier this year, explaining what happened when he met Lucas to talk about Underworld around 2009.
Up to 60 scripts were written — enough for four seasons. Rumored plots will sound eerily familiar to anyone who’s watched the last ten years of Star Wars TV shows: the early years of the Empire under Emperor Palpatine, how Han Solo and Lando Calrissian met, a Boba Fett appearance, Obi-Wan Kenobi appearing in Coruscant before a final duel with Maul, and more. As late as January 2012, McCallum and Lucas were both talking about Underworld, saying that “it was on the shelf” for now. But everything was about to change.
The fall of Underworld
As 2012 was wrapping up, two insurmountable walls arose to block Underworld: Money and Disney. As McCallum said in the podcast, the episodes were simply too expensive to make at the time. “The problem was that each episode was bigger than the films. So the lowest I could get it down to with each episode that existed then was $40 million an episode.”
So, Underworld was swept under the rug, at least until the episodes could be made at a cheaper rate. Meanwhile, Lucas was busy writing his own take on Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, before ultimately deciding to hand off his empire to the House of Mouse. Although Disney could have made Underworld, as well as Lucas’ vision of the Sequel Trilogy, time has shown us the company took a different path with the franchise.
Years later, the only surviving test footage of Underworld was uncovered, showcasing five minutes of a scene set in Coruscant, as a way of trying out the visual effects for how they could work in Underworld. It’s nothing much and doesn’t add anything to the overall franchise, but it’s a unique look into what could have been.
Could Underworld return, somehow?
As Luke Skywalker said in Episode VIII: The Last Jedi: ‘No one’s ever really gone.” You can apply that to cancelled projects like Underworld, too. McCallum mentioned in the same podcast that it would have taken Star Wars onto a brand new path. “It would have blown up the whole Star Wars universe, and Disney would have definitely never offered George to buy the franchise.”
You get the feeling with Lucasfilm, and its current CEO, Kathleen Kennedy, that story takes precedence before anything is greenlit, which is likely how we got the incredible Andor series.
It’s also one of the last things Lucas worked on before he decided to sell to Disney, so Underworld is only going to become more mythical as time passes. Combine this with his early ideas for what he had in mind for the Sequel Trilogy, such as Darth Maul becoming the new big bad, and suddenly, you wonder how things could have been different.
However, there’s always a chance the series could return in some way. Andor proved that a Star Wars show can thrive without relying on legacy characters, and Underworld seemingly ticked a lot of similar boxes, just in a different way. As it stands, around 60 almost-complete scripts could be given a light revision and possibly put into production by the end of the year. Is it likely? No, but it’s fun to think about the road not taken.
Ultimately, Star Wars Underworld remains a big ‘what could have been’ in the franchise’s history, but it’s also clearly been the inspiration behind some of the amazing shows we’ve gotten in recent years. Without Lucas deciding to sell to Disney, we wouldn’t have gotten Andor and everything else coming soon, so perhaps it’s only right that Underworld is now one with the Force.
