Rumor Report: The Mandalorian Season 4 Will Not Be A Movie After All...

A few days ago Jeff Sneider, who has a pretty good track record when it comes to Star Wars scoops, reported that The Mandalorian season 4 would be turned into a theatrical movie instead. Following this report sources contacted both Bespin Bulletin and Making Star Wars, who are also scoopers with a really good track record, and told them that Sneider reported old news and that turning The Mandalorian into a movie was merely an option Lucasfilm considered, depending on how badly the Hollyood strike would affect things, but that The Mandalorian season 4 will ultimately NOT be turned into a movie. Instead, Bespin Bulletin reports that season 4 will begin filming early next year, most likely in February or late January and is still scheduled for a 2025 release, probably in the summer, if season 4 also spends about 12 months in post production like season 3. There are some more tidbits, including more info about Skeleton Crew, click through to read it all!

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According to the latest rumors The Mandalorian season 4 will not pick up any of the plot threads of Ahsoka and will be its own thing with a separate storyline. No season 2 has been greenlit for Ahsoka yet, but if Lucasfilm still want to go ahead with the crossover event movie a season 2 seems to be likely.

Making Star Wars also had a few more tidbits about Skeleton Crew. Many of the character names are now known. Bespin Bulletin revealed that the Ortolan (aka Max Rebo species) kid will be “Neel”. Making Star Wars added that another of the male kids will be called “Whim”, and he’s supposed to be the adventure loving main child character. One of the girls will be Kaybee (probably the girl with the visor) and is allegedly named after now defunct “KB Toys”. The droid (a K2 style model) is called SM-33, which may or may not be pronounced Sammy.

According to Making Star Wars Lucasfilm is doubling down on the Amblin Entertainment / Steven Spielberg / E.T. vibe, apparently the kids will have speeder bikes that very much resemble 1980s BMX bikes and they will also make use of walkie talkies and flashlights, just with a Star Wars design. This all sounds as if Lucasfilm  is eager to have their own Stranger Things, only in space, and with Star Wars.

The names of the adult characters are still unknown, what is known is that Jude Law joins the kids eventually when he frees them from a jail cell.

And here are all the child actors from Skeleton Crew:

Ravi Cabot-Conyers (12) will be “Whim”

Robert Timothy Smith will be “Neel”

Kyriana Kratter (10) will likely be “Kaybee”

Ryan Kiera Armstrong (13) completes the child character roster

It seems the AI Casting Bot used by Disney picked a perfect representation of almost all major ethnicities in the US, only Latinos drew the short straw even though they are usually vastly overrepresented among Star Wars moviegoers and pretty avid Star Wars fans. The bot also made sure to have an equal number of male and female kids. And if I sound cynical then because casting for modern Hollywood movies or shows seems to be done by algorithm these days, which does not imply of course the actors chosen are not talented.

None of the kids are newcomers and they all have acting experience. Ravi, for example, was a voice actor in Encanto, Robert was in two tv shows before (he has the least experience though), Kyriana also has tv experience despite her young age and Ryan Kiera has by far the most experience of all the children (she’s also the oldest one), since she hasn’t just been on tv/streaming (among other things she was in American Horror Story), but she also starred in some major Hollywood movies, she was in Black Widow, IT: Chapter Two, starred as Chris Pratt’s daughter in “The Tomorrow War”, she was even the lead in the Stephen King movie Firestarter and her most recent work is a western movie with Nicolas Cage of all people titled “The Old Way”, where she is the co-lead and plays the daughter.
Actually, Ryan Kiera was in the news when she was nominated for a Razzie as “worst actress” in Firestarter (the movie has a whopping 4.6 on IMDB), only for the organization to pull back and to apologize for putting a child actor into the crossfire and ridiculing her. She shares this dubious honor with Jake Lloyd for his role as Anakin. As a result the Razzie organizers have decided  to never again nominate actors younger than 18 for any of their “awards” in the future. Anyway,  I find it peculiar that she is not supposed to be the lead child character, given her extensive acting experience and age. So the children can certainly act and they all have experience, despite being so young.

And then of course there will be Jude Law, the mandatory British person in Star Wars. For a change the British man will not be a villain though. Two more adult actors will be Kerry Condon and Tunde Adebimpe, who will most likely play parents and therefore probably not have that much screentime, since the premise of the show is that the kids and Jude Law are eventully lost in space. Neither Jude Law’s nor the other adult’s character names are known yet.

Jude Law with three of the child actors, Ryan Kiera was not at Star Wars Celebration

With all that we have a tentative Star Wars schedule for 2024 and 2025: in 2024 we will get the final season of The Bad Batch, a second season of Tales of the Jedi, The Acolyte (in summer) and Skeleton Crew (most likely during the holiday season). In 2025 we will get The Mandalorian season 4 and also Andor season 2 (its final season). And 2026 will have two movies plus whatever we may get on Disney+. I would not be surprised if a potential season 2 of Ahsoka would air in 2026. Three long years after season 1. Unless the plans change, this is Lucasfilm, after all. I still think a Rey movie may get pushed back, then delayed some more and finally never talked about again Rian Johnson trilogy style. But we will see!

For now, according to the updated rumor report, the next movie is still supposed to be New Jedi Order with Rey and Disney still has two Star Wars movies listed for 2026, in May and December.

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