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Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian will be released at launch of Disney Plus

"We're trying to make it look like Star Wars," says Executive Producer Jon Favreau.

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Joan E. Solsman
2 min read
the-mandaloriancropped

The Mandalorian is a big-budget series produced by Jon Favreau, which follows a lone gunfighter on the outer reaches of the galaxy. 

Lucasfilm

Disney's live-action, big-budget Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian will be available at launch when the company's Netflix-like Disney Plus service rolls out later this year. 

"We're trying to make it look like Star Wars -- a lot of visual effects, a lot of editing," Executive Producer Jon Favreau said of his work now that shooting of The Mandalorian has finished. He spoke Thursday at an event in Los Angeles unveiling Disney Plus.

A short featurette about The Mandalorian, shown to investors gathered at the Disney studio lot, featured the Mandalorian bounty-hunter character walking across a gray, snowy landscape near an alien outpost. He holds out a beeping tracker with a blinking red light, and the scene cuts to the character entering a bar with drums pounding. 

In the featurette, Favreau said the series starts with the bounty-hunting Mandalorian tracking down quarries. "This is a character you've never met before and period of time you've never seen before," Favreau says. The story takes place five years after the events of Return of the Jedi. 

High-profile originals like The Mandalorian are a crucial selling point for Disney as it attempt to launch a Netflix rival from scratch. After years of putting streaming in the back seat to protect its big-budget blockbusters and lucrative TV model, Disney has made streaming its top priority this year, even restructuring the company around it. It's the highest-profile example of traditional Hollywood going to extreme lengths to fortify against competition from digital powerhouses like NetflixAmazon and -- soon -- Apple

The Mandalorian will star Pedro Pascal, known for playing Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones (aka the guy who lost that hand-to-hand fight against the Mountain. Yes, that one). 

The Mandalorian is one of two known Star Wars series planned for Disney Plus, in addition to a Rogue One prequel starring Diego Luna reprising his role of Cassian Andor. The company also has Marvel originals in the pipeline, with programs that center on Avengers characters Loki, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye.