Star Wars: Concepts for 'Rangers of the New Republic' series to be folded into 'The Mandalorian'

Last December, Lucasfilm announced a slew of new Star Wars television projects for Disney+, including a spinoff for Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka Tano and Rangers of the New Republic — all of which would ultimately culminate in a galactic crossover event. Rangers was expected to be fronted by Cara Dune, the newly-appointed Republic Marshal played by Gina Carano.

However, the show's fate became rather hazy earlier this year when Carano was fired by Disney for controversial social media posts that compared the political disagreements in the United States to the persecution in Nazi Germany. Naturally, fans wondered if the role of Dune would be recast or if the series would be scrapped entirely. It seems the latter is the likely outcome based on comments made by Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy to Empire for the magazine's 2021-in-review issue.

"We'd never written any scripts or anything on that," Kennedy said when asked about the current status of Rangers of the New Republic. "Some of that will figure into future episodes, I'm sure, of the next iteration of Mandalorian."

A third season of The Mandalorian has already been green-lit, but was waiting to go into full-on production once another spinoff — The Book of Boba Fett — had wrapped principal photography. Boba's solo outing (headlined by prequel alumnus, Temuera Morrison) premieres on Disney+ Wednesday, Dec. 29.

And what do the words "next iteration" imply for the future bounty hunting adventures of Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin? Well, the character completed his two-season arc of returning Grogu, aka Baby Yoda, back into the hands of the Jedi (Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker). Where he goes from there is anyone's guess, but it probably has something to do with the Darksaber, the rise of the First Order, and Bo-Katan's (Katee Sackhoff) plan to restore Mandalore to its former glory.

"It's pretty exciting to see what's going to be coming next year with Obi-Wan and Andor, Mandalorian, Ahsoka," Kennedy continued, essentially confirming that 2022 will be chock full of new Star Wars shows. "These projects are all so individual and unique in their own way that I think they'll appeal to a wide variety of audiences within Star Wars ... In many ways, that's the core of what inspired George [Lucas] to begin with. This long-form storytelling and ability to create interconnected storylines stems from that kind of Saturday matinee cliffhanger storytelling that George was so inspired by."

Kennedy also alluded to "a couple of other things that are in the hopper," meaning we shouldn't expect the galaxy far, far away to suffer a terrible heat death anytime soon.

"There seem to be so many stories to tell, we're definitely never going to run out," veteran Star Wars executive producer, writer, and director Dave Filoni told the magazine. "Jon [Favreau] and I ultimately are just two people that love this stuff. We're privileged to get to tell stories that we think we like, nd that we hope fans will like. It really boils down as simple as that."