Fans are gearing up for the premiere of the long-awaited Disney Plus show The Book Of Boba Fett, but unfortunately, they won’t be able to celebrate the premiere in person. Neither will anyone else, for that matter.
A premiere red carpet event for the show was planned for Jan. 4, but those plans have been shelved due to the recent Omicron surge.
However, it hasn’t been permanently canceled. Disney told Variety that the event will now take place on a later date to celebrate the show’s season finale.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we will be postponing the ‘Boba Fett’ fan event. It will be relocated to the 8th of February in celebration of the finale,” Disney said.
Fans have been looking forward to the show’s premiere ever since it was surprise announced after the season two finale of The Mandalorian. It follows the adventures of the original bounty hunter Boba Fett, who played a part in the original Star Wars trilogy.
The event was originally scheduled at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, and some high profile celebrities were going to appear, including Dave Filoni, Ming-Na Wen, Jon Favreau, and Kathleen Kennedy.
Disney kept The Book of Boba Fett was a huge secret, and many people who worked at Disney Plus at the time were completely taken by surprise when the network announced the show.
“Even Disney didn’t know we were going to drop it like that,” showrunner Robert Rodriguez told The Hollywood Reporter. “I got to see the inner workings, and [Favreau and writer-producer-director Dave Filoni] kept this a secret from everybody.”
George Lucas originally designed the character of Boba Fett, loosely basing the bounty hunter on the Clint Eastwood character in The Man With No Name movies. He was killed off in the third original trilogy Star Wars movie, 1983’s Return of the Jedi. However, once Disney bought Lucasfilm and gained the rights to the universe, they decided they wanted to bring the beloved character back.
Rodriguez explained that he took on the project because of the possibilities of the story.
“I usually avoid premier properties — you’ll never be able to please everybody, it’s a losing game,” Rodriguez said. “I’d rather go do something I’ve created so nobody can say, ‘Hey, that’s wrong because …’ I created it, so it can be anything I want it to be. I love that freedom. That changed with Boba because he was a character that was always underserved. It was a character way more popular than he should have been, based on [his limited screen time]. So it’s almost like starting with an original character. You can kind of do anything you want, so long as you make him cool and don’t make him a buffoon.”
The Book of Boba Fett premieres on Dec. 29.