As you would expect from a company that already dominates the pop culture market to an unprecedented degree, Disney are sparing no expense when it comes to original programming for their upcoming streaming service. As well as leaning heavily on the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, an animated series based on the popular What If…? comic books and currently-untitled shows focusing on Loki and Hawkeye, Disney Plus is also going all in on Star Wars.
The disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story may have nixed the studio’s plans for annual big screen spinoffs, but the Star Wars franchise will nonetheless have a huge presence on Disney Plus. A seventh season of The Clone Wars and a series with Rogue One’s Cassian Andor as the lead are both in development, but first out of the gate is The Mandalorian, which also happens to be one of the most expensive television shows ever made.
The Mandalorian is rumored to cost around $15M per episode, which is roughly the same per episode budget as the last season of Game of Thrones. That’s a huge amount of money to spend on a small-screen project, but it isn’t as if The Mandalorian doesn’t come with some serious star power.
The series boasts Jon Favreau as showrunner, episodes directed by Taika Waititi, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rick Famuyiwa and others along with a cast that features Pedro Pascal, Giancarlo Esposito, Nick Nolte, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers and Werner Herzog.
Despite the huge cost, Disney clearly have a massive amount of faith in the project as the studio’s current golden boy Favreau has already started writing and pre-visualizing a second season, even though The Mandalorian won’t land on Disney Plus until November 12th.