Star
Wars: Underworld
is said to be set primarily in the Coruscant underworld, in the time
period between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. It is during this
period that the Galactic Empire rises to ultimate power throughout the
galaxy. In 2005, George Lucas told Celebration IIIaudiences that the
show would not focus on any characters from the films, but that some of
them could appear. According to Lucas, "A lot of the issues from the
films are connected, but you won't necessarily see a lot of the people
that are connected." He later described the show as "bare-bones" and
"action-heavy", and explained that it would depict what the inhabitants
of the Star Wars galaxy do for entertainment.
Producer Rick McCallum commented on the plot of the series: "[Lucas]
envisions somewhere like 100 hours between Episode III and Episode IV
with a lot of characters that we haven't met that have been developed in
some of the novels and other things. We are really excited about that.
Finally, we could have the opportunity to answer everybody's questions
once and for all by the time we finish the series."; "It is going to be
much darker, grittier. It's much more character-based"; "Think about
bounty hunter, that's all I can tell you." He also called it "Deadwood
in space" and "Empire on steroids", and compared it to The
Godfather. Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet also described the series as
revealing the "greasy, seamy underbelly of Star Wars".
In an
interview in the November 2005 edition of the UK magazine Total Film
magazine, McCallum was asked "How can Leia claim to remember her mother
when Padmé dies in childbirth in Sith?", to which he replied "I
think that could only be answered in the television series". According
to Dan Wasson, project leader for the Wii version of the Star Wars:
The Force Unleashed video game, the TV series may contain elements
from the overall Star Wars: The Force Unleashed multimedia
project. In 2014, Stephen Scaia revealed in his Kickstarter campaign
that he had been a writer for the series, and was involved in several
story elements, including Lando Calrissianlosing the Millennium
Falcon to Han Solo, Solo and Chewbacca's first meeting, as well as
an action scene with Boba Fett.
Cast
and characters
"It
was going to tell the story of a different part of the Star Wars
universe that you didn't exactly know, and then it was going to slowly
fold back into the characters that you knew and loved."
―Stephen Scaia[src]
The
series was expected to feature minor characters from both the films and
the Expanded Universe—with possible cameos by some of the main
characters. Lucas: "The Emperor and Darth Vader are heard about — people
talk about them — but you never see them because it doesn't take place
where they actually are. There are stormtroopers and all that, but there
are no Jedis." Lucas had originally written a scene for Revenge of
the Sith involving the Expanded Universe character Quinlan Vos, but
the character received only a mention in the final film. Lucas himself
later instructed the writers of the Star Wars: Republic comic
book series to not kill off the character. This has led some fans
to speculate that Vos may play a role in the series. A. C. Crispin
proposed a book series that would have focused on Leia Organa between
Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, but "Lucasfilm didn't
approve the idea of a Leia backstory because they want to keep that era
of the SW continuity untouched for the television series they're
considering." Karen Traviss was to write a novel involving Boba Fett,
but the project was reportedly canceled because of possible conflicts
with the TV series.
Multiple actors from the films voiced their interest in playing a role:
Jeremy Bulloch, Jay Laga'aia, Daniel Logan, Peter Mayhew and Ian
McDiarmid. For a time, Logan underwent physical training with Ray Park,
in anticipation of reprising his role as Boba Fett.[39] Star Wars:
The Force Unleashed actor Sam Witwer expressed an interest in
appearing in the series (possibly as Galen Marek, Vader's secret
apprentice), and hinted in an interview that he would be involved with
the show. On March 9, 2009, actress Rose Byrne, who appeared in Star
Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, told MTV that casting
for the series was underway, and that some of her friends had auditioned
for roles. However, Star Wars Insider 109 claimed that scripts
had yet to be written at that point, and would precede any earnest
casting efforts.
Development
"It's
a completely different kind of idea, which is risky. But that's the only
reason I'm doing it. Some people will inevitably say, 'It's not what I
think of as Star Wars.' So who knows, it may work or it may not."
―George Lucas, Total Film magazine, May 2008 issue, p. 138[src]
Prior
to the release of the original Star Wars film in 1977, rumors
began circulating that a TV series would be produced based on the film.
Although such a project never came to fruition, George Lucas became
involved (to varying degrees) in three live-action Star Wars
television productions: The Star Wars Holiday Special, Caravan
of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
While the Holiday Special was a critical failure, both Ewok
films won Emmy awards and had a positive critical reaction. In each
case, the networks saw the productions as backdoor pilots for possible
television series, though Lucas wasn't interested.[47][48] In From 1992
to 1996, Lucas produced the television series The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles, during which he developed a love of making television.
In
late 2004, rumors again began to circulate of a live-action Star Wars
series in development. Lucas officially announced his plans for a
live-action Star Wars television series at Celebration III,
saying "We probably won't start that until sometime next year." He also
spoke of plans for a new animated television series set during the Clone
Wars, which he expected to be produced first. Also at the event, Rick
McCallum elaborated; "He [George] envisions somewhere like 100 hours
between Episode III and Episode IV." However, at 2007's Celebration
Europe, McCallum claimed that the plan was to produce "up to 400
episodes". He also revealed that "I've had three conceptual artists
working on it now for about seven months." The original plan was for the
first season to be entirely written and produced before shopping the
series to broadcast networks; After a network was committed, work would
commence on the following seasons.
Writing
"We'd
go gather at Skywalker Ranch periodically, every couple of months, and
break stories and write scripts for this proposed series that George was
interested in. And George was in the ring with us every day. And it was
a fascinating, amazing experience."
―Ronald D. Moore[src]
Lucas
and McCallum interviewed over 200 prospective "writers of real
significance" from all over the world—including England, the United
States, Paris, Prague, Budapest, and Australia. McCallum remarked, "It's
about who's talented, who's got the strength to challenge George and
also, much more importantly, what's the dynamics of the five or six
people. If they can let go of their ego and work toward a specific goal.
Sometimes you think 'I'm sick of writing alone.' Everyone has their ebb
and flow. We're trying to get everyone in their peak." Writers from
Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, and Lost, as well as
those from the Star Wars books and comics, were considered as
part of the final interview process in late 2007. In the end, six
writers were hired—including Terry Cafolla, Chris Chibnall, Louise Fox,
Tony McNamara, Fiona Seres, Matthew Graham, Ronald D. Moore,[ and
Stephen Scaia—and were expected to start work in November 2007. Former
Doctor Whowriter Russell T Davies was asked to write for the
show, but turned it down due to his desire to do his own projects in a
different style to both franchises; however, he did claim to be jealous
of whoever ended up being hired.
After
the writers were hired, story outlines took shape over the next three
months. McCallum expected the first writing conference to occur in late
2007, and sessions had began by August 2008. The writers worked closely
with the art department (including concept artist Erik Tiemens), which
had been working to design sets, environments, vehicles and aliens since
2007. Ronald D. Moore commented on the writing process: "The scripts
were written as if money was no object. George was like, 'Don't worry
about it.' [Producer Rick McCallum] would groan and put his head in his
hands periodically. So for us it was like, 'Okay, f–k it, let's write
whatever we want.'" In the end, fifty hours worth of episodes plus a
"movie-of-the-week" were written. George Lucas discussed this when he
appeared on a May 2011 episode of G4's Attack of the Show to
discuss contemporary Star Wars-related topics. During the
interview, he claimed that the scripts "looked like the Star Warsfeatures".In
a January 2012 interview with IGN, McCallum revealed the working title
to be Underworld, which had originally served as the working
title for an early concept for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
McCallum denied this the next day, though he later told Entertainment
Weekly that it was indeed the working title.
Filming
"So
imagine an hour's episode with more digital animation and more visual
effects and more complicated in terms of set design and costume design
than a two-hour movie that takes us three years to make, and we have to
do that every week and we only have $5 million to do it. That's our
challenge."
―Rick
McCallum[src]
McCallum expected that he and Lucas would approach the series in a
similar manner as Lucas' The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Like
on that earlier series, they hoped to give each episode the look of a
feature film, with feature-level production values and visual effects on
a television budget. Lucas also talked of using the show as a template
for how he would approach "more personal films" that he hoped to create.
In 2005, Lucas stated his intentions to shoot the series using
consumer-level cameras, which McCallum said would be high-definition
cameras. In late 2009, Lucas and McCallum invited filmmaker Phillip
Bloom to Skywalker Ranchto advise on using different types of cameras
for pick-up photography on Red Tails, and for the live-action
series. Lucas expected that, in producing the show, he would "do what
would typically cost $20 million, for $1 million." According to IESB,
McCallum has said that each episode will have a budget of 2-4 million
dollars.
Principal photography was planned to take place all around the world,
with a likely base in Sydney, Australia. McCallum originally expected
production to begin in either 2008 or 2009. However, as of March 2009,
preliminary casting was still underway; a Lucasfilm representative
claimed at the time that official casting would begin once the scripts
were complete and that the series would not go into production until
2010. McCallum expected the first season to consist of
thirteen-to-sixteen episodes, shot over a one-to-two-year time period.
In a June 2011 interview, McCallum said that the show would most likely
be filmed in the Czech Republic, a location used multiple times by
LucasFilm for various productions. Reportedly, Jim Marquand, son of
Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi director Richard
Marquand, was hired as one of the directors. McCallum expected that each
episode of the series would have its own original score, and hoped that
John Williams would return as composer.
At a
2010 screening of The Empire Strikes Back in Chicago, Illinois,
Lucas announced that the series was "on hold" due to budget concerns.
Lucas and McCallum later elaborated that the scripts were prohibitively
expensive for television, and that the show was put on hold in order to
wait on technology to develop to the point that costs could be kept
relatively low. Lucas had long planned to build an expansion to his
Lucas Valley property called Grady Ranch, which would have been "a
digital media production facility for movies and television." However,
in early 2012, Marin County rejected the project due to concerns over
traffic and noise. On October 30, 2012, The Walt Disney Company
announced an agreement to acquire Lucasfilm, including the rights to the
Star Wars franchise. In a conference call following the press
release, Disney expressed interest in the potential of a Star Wars
television series, but did not go into details. Soon after, it was
announced that McCallum had retired from Lucasfilm.
In
January 2013, ABC president Paul Lee told Entertainment Weekly
that the live-action Star Wars series was being reevaluated for
production. This was confirmed by Bob Iger that March. That August, Lee
again visited the topic of a Star Wars live-action series; "We've
started conversations. I'd love to go there. I'm a particular fan of
Lucasfilm. It's an amazing world." (Other ABC executives later
reiterated this in 2016. In December 2015, Kathleen Kennedy told
Slashfilm that Lucasfilm had been looking at the material for both
Underworld and the video game Star Wars: 1313, and that those
projects may still be developed.
Release and legacy
"You've
got network TV, which is really where we should be because it has the
dollars to pay for this and an audience, but you're burdened by the fact
you only get 42 minutes for an hour because of commercials. And then
you've got cable, which has the most provocative and daring programming,
but has audiences of 1 or 2 million people. They also have a very
limited amount of money they can spend without wanting some sort of say
or control over the material, which is absolutely repugnant to us in
terms of the way we work."
―Rick
McCallum, to denofgeek.com[src]
In a
2006 interview, Steve Sansweet said that he expected the series to be
released "toward the end of the decade." He gave the time period until
release to be "about 3 years." A teaser image for the series was shown
at Toy Fair 2007, advertising the next three years of Star Wars:
the 30th anniversary of the saga and the release of The Force
Unleashed in 2007 (which was pushed back to 2008), the new Clone
Wars TV series in 2008, and the live-action series in 2009. Rick
McCallum expected the series to be released simultaneously worldwide and
to be broadcast on cable. Both Disney and News Corp were rumored to have
shown interest in acquiring broadcast rights for the show, with the
former offering ABC and ABC Family and the latter offering FOX and
FX.[97] Additionally, Lucas voiced his interest in distributing the
series via the Internet—specifically StarWars.com.
At
2005's Celebration III, Lucas told audiences that if the live-action
series (along with the new Clone Warsanimated series) was
successful, more series could follow. At 2007's Celebration Europe,
McCallum explained that "One of the ideas is that we'll have multiple
series going on in about two or three years' time." McCallum said he
hoped that after the series' second or third year, a character could
have his/her own spin-off series, and by the fourth or fifth year, the
production staff could have at least five separate series running. Lucas
described the series as "one show that will split into four shows,
focusing on different characters."
Comments from Lucasfilm employees (such as Sue Rostoni and Jim Ward) had
hinted that tie-ins such as spin-off books and video games were planned.
The video game Star Wars: 1313 was originally conceived as a
direct tie-in to Underworld; After Underworld was
postponed in 2010 due to budget constraints, 1313 was altered to
be its own distinct project. However, at George Lucas's request, the
final game was to have still taken inspiration from elements of
Underworld. The Clone Wars introduced Level 1313,as well as
the character Saw Gerrera, who was also conceived for Underworld.
Star Wars Rebels was influenced by ideas developed by Lucas for
Underworld. The Church of the Force—a background element related
to Lor San Tekka from Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens—was
created by Lucas for Underworld.[108] John Knoll originally
developed the story for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in the
mid-2000s, in the hopes that it could be an episode of the live-action
series.
Kratos's character arc from the upcoming God of War game was
inspired by the unproduced Underworld scripts. Former LucasArts
developer Cory Barlog revealed he read scripts for episodes featuring
Palpatine, where "They made the Emperor a sympathetic figure who was
wronged by this [...] heartless woman. She's this hardcore gangster, and
she just totally destroyed him as a person. I almost cried while reading
this. This is the Emperor, the lightning out of the fingers Emperor.
That's something magical." |