Lucasfilm didn’t skimp on the first day of Star Wars Celebration 2025 in Tokyo. Hot on the heels of the announcement that Star Wars: Starfighteris heading to theaters in 2027, Lucasfilm turned the spotlight to the next film in the Star Wars franchise: The Mandalorian & Grogu. This continuation of The Mandalorianis currently in post-production, but fans in Tokyo got the chance to see the first footage from the movie.
Via The Hollywood Reporter, the film’s director and co-writer, Jon Favreau, appeared alongside the other co-writer, Dave Filoni. They were also joined by Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, and even an animatronic Grogu that walked out on stage and waved to the audience.
The opening scene of the preview featured Din Djarin (Pascal) breaking into an AT-AT and fighting the snowtroopers who were on the inside in one long continuous take on his way to the cockpit. Weaver’s character wasn’t named in the clip, but she claims that Din and Grogu are working for her now. The rest of the sizzle reel including a glimpse of Jabba the Hutt’s son, Rotta the Hutt, as voiced by The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White. Some of the other scenes showed Grogu demonstrating his powers and his ongoing love of snacking. More impressively, an AT-AT fell down a snowy cliff, presumably due to Din’s actions inside of it.
While on stage, Pascal recalled how he joined the franchise prior to the launch of The Mandalorian on Disney+.
“I’ll never forget the first day that I got to sit down with Jon and Dave in the writers room,” recalled Pacal. “And they showed me, wall-to-wall story illustrations of the first season of Mandalorian, without me even understanding who they expected me to play. And I remember just seeing the greatest visual storyboards that I had ever seen, and knowing that people were going to lose their minds.”
THR’s report notes that Favreau and Filoni were originally working on The Mandalorian season 4 before the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Afterwards, the decision was made to end the franchise’s seven-year gap between movies with two of the most popular characters in the post-George Lucas era.
The Mandalorian & Grogu will be released on May 22, 2026.
Among critics and some Star Wars fans, Andor season 1 was considered the best show in the franchise to date even above its predecessor, The Mandalorian. Those voices grew even louder after The Mandalorian season 3 didn’t generate the positive response that the first two seasons had. Regardless, Andor creator Tony Gilroy insists that there isn’t a rivalry between the two shows. He went on to contend that without The Mandalorian, Andor wouldn’t exist.
“The success of The Mandalorian gave us the platform to jump off,” said Gilroy during an interview with Empire Magazine. “Their success is what would fuel the whole thing. I mean, no Baby Yoda, no Andor. Seriously. Don’t think that we don’t know that.”
Gilroy went on to shoot down rumors of any rivalry between himself and The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau or Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni.
“Online, [people] try to drive a wedge all the time between us, and [Jon] Favreau and [Dave] Filoni,” noted Gilroy. “It’s horrible what people say; it’s terrible. And the truth is, we don’t have a show without them. They gave us the muscle to go.”
The Mandalorian is spreading to theaters next year with The Mandalorian & Grogu, but Andor season 2 is the end of the road for this Rogue One prequel series. Diego Luna, who stars in the series as Cassian Andor, told SFX Magazine that the show’s conclusuon will flow natrually into the beginning of Rogue One.
“If you have your DVD or Blu-ray of Rogue One, you should plug it in as soon as the season ends, and you’ll see a film that will be resignified,” said Luna. “You’re going to see it differently, with so much information you didn’t have before. You knew nothing about this bunch of Rebels that got together and made this sacrifice, and then we did a show of 24 episodes about one of them. I definitely believe it’s going to change the experience because it’s now so full of answers – almost many more than you even wanted when you watched Rogue One.
Andor season 2 will have a three-episode premiere on Disney+ on April 22.
It’s the end of the road for 1923. The popular Yellowstone prequel recently wrapped up its second season with an explosive finale. Created by Taylor Sheridan, 1923 explored the origins of the Dutton family in 1923. Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren star as Jacob and Cara Dutton, who face battles on all fronts to protect their ranch during the difficult times of Prohibition and the beginning of the Great Depression.
Sheridan created 1923 to be a two-season series. It’s unknown if the prolific showrunner will write a third season due to the high ratings. For now, here are five shows to watch if you liked 1923.
If you’re going to pick one Sheridan show to pair with 1923, Yellowstonemakes the most sense since it inspired the Ford-led prequel. Yellowstone introduces the world to the Dutton family, owners of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch and arguably the most powerful family in Montana.
John Dutton (Kevin Costner) is the patriarch who controls every aspect of the ranch, the largest in the state. Along with his kids (Wes Bentley, Kelly Reilly, and Luke Grimes), the Duttons navigate political pressure and corporate greed as they face obstacles at every corner — wealthy businessmen, government officials, and an Indian reservation. Yellowstone is a Western soap opera dressed up as a drama (compliment). Plus, anyone who watches at least one episode will Google flights to Montana.
American Primevaldoesn’t pull its punches in its depiction of Western expansion. Executive produced by Peter Berg, American Primeval follows several interconnected storylines in 1857 during the Utah War. The most compelling storyline involves Isaac (Taylor Kitsch), a skilled woodsman who agrees to help Sara (Betty Gilpin) and her son, Devin (Preston Mota), get across the frontier.
The series also focuses on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its Mormon militia, which engage in violent and oppressive confrontations with other cultures in the area. If you’re looking for a series that glamorizes expansion, this ain’t it. It’s a violent watch, but an enthralling one where you can’t look away.
Before he won multiple Emmys for his work on The Queen’s Gambit, Scott Frank created the underrated Godless, a Western drama set in 1884. Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell) is an outlaw on the run after betraying his boss, Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels), a notorious criminal with a history of brutality and violence.
Roy attempts to find refuge in La Belle, a New Mexico town occupied by women after a mining accident killed most of the men. Hardened widow Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery) agrees to nurse Roy back to health. The town gets word that Frank and his gang are headed to La Belle, Alice and the other residents prepare to defend their town to the death. Considering how Westerns predominantly focus on men, Godless is a great change of pace and spotlight for a strong female-focused story.
In the 2010s, AMC wasn’t only dedicated to The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men. Mixed in between those premier shows was Hell on Wheels, a Western drama set in the aftermath of the Civil War. Former Confederate soldier Cullen Bohannon (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Anson Mount) is on a mission to find the Union soldiers who killed his wife and son.
Bohannon travels west to work on the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, aka “Hell on Wheels.” Over the five-season run, Hell on Wheels shifts from a revenge plot to a show about political conflict, individual ambition, and the growth of the American frontier. This shift in tone and exploration of a new frontier is why Hell on Wheels lasted as long as it did.
How does a Star Wars show find its way on this list? The Mandalorianis essentially a space Western. Think of Clint Eastwood as an outlaw with an armored suit. Released in 2019, The Mandalorian is unquestionably the biggest Star Wars show on Disney+. The series stars Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, a Mandalorian bounty hunter (“Mando”) working five years after the events of Return of the Jedi.
An old Imperial client hires Mando to retrieve a target and bring it to him alive. When Mando discovers the target, he sees that it’s a green infant named Grogu. Instead of returning the child to his client, Mando takes Grogu on a galaxy-trotting adventure to find the little creature’s home. The show works best when positioned as an “adventure of the week.” Fans have to wait one more year for the return of “Baby Yoda” in 2026’s The Mandalorian & Grogu.
