"Star Wars: Underworld Cancellation Due to High Costs"

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: the revelation about the cancelled Star Wars series, Star Wars: Underworld, is a tough pill to swallow for fans. Rick McCallum, the producer behind the Star Wars prequels, recently shared that the ambitious project would have cost an eye-watering $40 million per episode. This staggering budget ultimately led to its cancellation.

“The problem was that each episode was bigger than the films,” McCallum explained during an interview on the Young Indy Chronicles podcast. “So the lowest I could get it down to with the tech that existed then was $40 million an episode.” He further expressed that the inability to bring this vision to life remains “one of the great disappointments of our lives.”

With an impressive 60 “third draft” scripts penned by some of the world’s most talented writers, Star Wars: Underworld promised to explore the Star Wars universe in ways described as “sexy, violent, dark, challenging, complicated, and wonderful.” However, the financial implications were insurmountable. At $40 million per episode, the total cost for the series would have easily surpassed $1 billion—a sum even George Lucas couldn’t muster in the early 2000s.

“[It] would’ve blown up the whole Star Wars universe and Disney would’ve definitely never offered George to buy the franchise,” McCallum noted. The series met its ultimate fate when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and George Lucas stepped back from the helm.

While McCallum did not divulge specific plot details in the interview, it's widely speculated that Star Wars: Underworld would have depicted events occurring between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The producer had previously mentioned that the series would introduce a fresh cast of characters, significantly expand the Star Wars universe, and cater to an adult audience rather than focusing on teens and children.

Star Wars: Underworld was first announced at Star Wars Celebration in 2005, and test footage surfaced in 2020. Unfortunately, it appears that this is where the story ends, leaving fans to wonder what might have been.