Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ Hotstar Series Filming Begins March 2021, Ewan McGregor Reveals

The Obi-Wan Kenobi Star Wars series, set to air on Disney+ Hotstar, will begin filming in March 2021 according to star Ewan McGregor. Set eight years after Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and 11 years prior to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, the as-yet untitled Obi-Wan Disney+ series takes place during a time in the Skywalker Saga when the Jedi Order is at its weakest. Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian, The High Cost of Living) is attached as director, with Joby Harold (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) and Hossein Amini (McMafia, Drive) having worked on the scripts.

Appearing on BBC's The Graham Norton Show last Friday over a video call, McGregor was asked by Norton to confirm his return to Star Wars and whether it's all about him. He replied: “It's the Obi-Wan Kenobi story, I suppose. Well, it's not all me but it certainly will be a lot of me, which is good! We start shooting it in March of next year.”

One of Norton's studio guests then chimed in with a question of their own, about how McGregor is now much closer in age to Alec Guinness, who memorably played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, between 1977 and 1983, and was nominated for an Oscar. McGregor took over the role for the Star Wars sequel trilogy, between 1999 and 2005.

McGregor said: “I mean the fun thing about doing them in the first place when I was much younger was trying to imagine Alec Guinness, ‘How would he play these scenes as a younger guy?' And it led me to watch a lot of his early work, which I hadn't seen before. Brilliant movies, wonderful films that he'd been in. And I had such a great time sort of studying him in those movies.”

He then added: “This time [on the Obi-Wan Disney+ series], as you say, I'm much closer in age to him. And it will be my challenge to try and sort of meet him somewhere. I love Alec Guinness, I never got to meet him, but I love him through his work and it's a great honour to be able to sort of try and pretend to be him.”

Originally planned as a standalone movie with a different director, the Obi-Wan prequel was turned into a Disney+ series after the critical and commercial failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It was officially announced at Disney's D23 Expo last August, where McGregor also revealed that it would consist of six one-hour episodes. Amini was then attached as writer but he left in January when the series was indefinitely postponed, due to the scripts' alleged similarity to The Mandalorian. Harold replaced him as the writer back in April.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series doesn't have a release date. Production begins March 2021.