A New Rumor Details Disney Is Working On A New “Female-Centric” Star Wars Series
John F. Trent
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A new rumor details that Disney and Lucasfilm are working on a new “female-centric” Star Wars series.
The rumor comes from Variety and details the series is being helmed by the co-creator of Netflix’s Russian Doll series, Lesly Headland. Headland is expected to write and serve as showrunner for the series.
According to Variety’s sources the series is described as “female-centric” and will take place “in a different part of the Star Wars timeline than other projects.” No other plot details were relayed.
Maybe the most interesting part of this rumor is that Variety notes the show is currently hiring writers.
Headland recently discussed the film industry where she described white executives as the “silent killer.” She stated, “I’m also seeing the silent killer, which is a lot of white women at the top who are kind of reinforcing old ideas.”
She added, “As I started to rise in television, I started to just get more blunt. And just start saying like, ‘I would like a black writer’ because if I said diverse, you know, you get well ‘White is diverse,’ which is something somebody said to me. I was like ‘It’s not, but cool.'”
Meet Lucasfilm’s latest hire. Yikes https://t.co/PwmIDweHbG
— Jeremy Prime (@DDayCobra) April 23, 2020
Related: Report: Marvel And Disney Terminate Deals With Punisher and Helstrom Showrunners
What makes this especially interesting is that The Hollywood Reporter recently reported that Disney and Marvel Studios terminated the contracts of Punisher showruner Steve Lightfoot and Helstrom showrunner Paul Zbyszewski.
Not only did Disney and Marvel reportedly terminate the projects, but they had previously announced they would be furloughing employees “whose jobs aren’t necessary at this time” at the beginning of April.
A statement from Disney reads in part, “The COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating impact on our world with untold suffering and loss, and has required all of us to make sacrifices. Over the last few weeks, mandatory decrees from government officials have shut down a majority of our businesses.”
They added, “[W]ith no clear indication of when we can restart our businesses, we’re forced to make the difficult decision to take the next step and furlough employees whose jobs aren’t necessary at this time.”
That statement would come to fruition when Disney furloughed 100,000 theme park and hotel workers earlier this week.
NBC News reports Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida saw 70,000 workers furloughed. Disney World reportedly employed 75,000 people before the furloughs.
It’s not just theme park workers who are facing furloughs. Sources tell Bounding Into Comics that much of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures’ publicity team has also been furloughed.
Deadline reported at the beginning of this month that Disney furloughed their UK production team for The Little Mermaid. They had previously issued termination notices, but that decision turned into a furlough that is expected to last until at least the end of May.
It’s hard to imagine that Disney and Lucasfilm would pursue new projects when they are cancelling a number of projects across the board and across the company.
Nevertheless, this rumor does appear to fit in line with where Lucasfilm has been signalling they were going to take the Star Wars franchise.
What do you make of this rumor? Are you interested in checking out a “female-centric” Star Wars series?
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