George Lucas’ Cancelled Billion-Dollar ‘Star Wars’ TV Show Could Have Changed the Franchise Forever

Producer Rick McCallum claims that George Lucas’s grandiose ambitions for a ‘Star Wars’ TV show in the early 2000s had the potential to fundamentally change the franchise.  ‘Star Wars: Underworld’ was a multi-year development project that, if completed, may have cost billions of dollars.

 In an interview with the ‘Young Indy Chroniclers’ podcast, McCallum discussed the evolution of the program and recalled that he and Lucas had amassed more than 60 scripts authored by some of the best screenwriters in the business.  He characterized the writings as action-packed, mature, and gloomy.  He said the series would have changed the ‘Star Wars’ universe and implied that Disney might not have tried to buy ‘Star Wars’ from Lucas if the project had proceeded.

George Lucas had grand ambitions for a ‘Star Wars’ television show in the early 2000s that, according to producer Rick McCallum, had the potential to fundamentally change the franchise.  After years of development, the project, which was called ‘Star Wars: Underworld’, could have cost billions of dollars if it were completed.

Image Courtesy: Getty Images

Lucas eventually sold ‘Star Wars’ to Disney in 2012 for $4 billion.  A new trilogy of sequels (‘The Force Awakens’, ‘The Last Jedi’, and ‘The Rise of Skywalker’), stand-alone movies like ‘Rogue One’ and ‘Solo’, and other television shows were all part of the franchise’s expansion under Disney.  In the future, Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, Jeremy Allen White, and Johnny Coyne will star in ‘The Mandalorian’ & Grogu’, which is scheduled for release in May 2026.

 Lucas, however, continues to be a prominent figure in the entertainment sector.  With a net worth of $5.5 billion, he topped Forbes’ list of the richest celebrities in the world in 2024.

–Farheen Ali