'The Book of Boba Fett' takes Jabba's throne in first trailer for 'The Mandalorian' spinoff

Witness the rise of a new breed of galactic felon in the very first trailer for The Book of Boba Fett. Teased in the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, the Star Wars spinoff series finds Boba (played by the prequel trilogy's Temuera Morrison) usurping the underworld empire once run by Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine.

With the loyal Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) at his side, the iconic bounty hunter — though it sounds like he no longer wants to be defined as such — plans to forego the slug-like gangster's policy of fear for one of respect. If you give him any lip, he'll actually hear you out, whereas Jabba would have wasted no time in feeding a disrespectful guest to his pet Rancor.

A sci-fi version of Marlon Brando's Don Corleone, Boba gathers a number of criminal families together in order to form an alliance of sorts. Why continue all the fighting amongst the various law-breaking factions when there are plenty of spoils to go around for everyone? In short, he's proposing the formation of the most ambitious syndicate the Outer Rim has ever seen.

Watch the trailer now:

Longtime fans will notice a number of familiar Star Wars alien species, including Trandoshans, Twi'leks, Aqualish, and, of course, Tusken Raiders. In addition, the footage opens with what looks like a bit of stop-motion animation (a callback to the old school, yet completely groundbreaking, special effects used on the first three movies).

The project, which arrives on Disney+ in late December, hails from executive producers Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, Colin Wilson, and Robert Rodriguez.

“Wait until you see what’s coming. It’s going to blow your mind," Rodriguez, who oversaw Fett's epic franchise return in The Mandalorian's sophomore outing, teased over the summer. "That’s all I can say. I can talk it up all I want, because I know it over-delivers. It way over-delivers. People are going to be so pumped when they see it.”

Appearing on Good Morning America last December, Favreau discussed his desire to keep the spinoff out of Disney's big Investor Day presentation held several weeks beforehand (a number of upcoming Lucasfilm titles were announced, but The Book of Boba Fett was not among them).

"We wanted to hold this back because we didn't want to spoil the surprise during the big Disney announcement of all the shows when Kathleen Kennedy was up there," he said. "And so, they let me keep this one a secret. This is actually separate from The Mandalorian Season 3." He added that production on the third season "back with the main character that we have known and loved" would begin after the spinoff was completed.

Karen Gilchrist and Carrie Beck serve as co-executive producers, with John Bartnicki producing and John Hampian as co-producer.

The Book of Boba Fett premieres on Disney+ Wednesday, Dec. 29.

Photo: Lucasfilm