The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian, also known as Star Wars: The Mandalorian, is an American space Western television series created by Jon Favreau for the streaming service Disney+. It is the first live-action series in the Star Wars franchise and begins five years after the events of the film Return of the Jedi. It follows a lone bounty hunter who protects a Force-sensitive child, Grogu, from remnant Imperial forces.
Pedro Pascal stars as the title character, with Katee Sackhoff co-starring in the third season. Star Wars creator George Lucas had begun developing a live-action Star Wars television series by 2009, but it was deemed too expensive to produce. He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in October 2012, and work on a new Star Wars series began for Disney+. Favreau signed on as writer and showrunner in March 2018. He executive produces alongside Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson; Rick Famuyiwa joined them for the third season. The title was announced in October 2018 when filming started at Manhattan Beach Studios in California. Visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic developed the StageCraft technology for the series, displaying digital backgrounds on a 360-degree video wall. This has since been adopted by other film and television productions.
The Mandalorian premiered with the launch of Disney+ on November 12, 2019. The rest of the first season was released through December 27. A second season was released from October to December 2020, and a third season was released from March to April 2023. The series has received largely positive reviews from critics and several accolades, including Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award wins for all three seasons. A feature film, The Mandalorian and Grogu, which will act as a continuation of the series, is being directed by Favreau and is scheduled for release in May 2026. A fourth season of the series had been in development, but it is unclear if the film superseded those plans. Interconnected spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew expand on The Mandalorian timeframe, with an untitled feature film directed by Filoni set to serve as a conclusion to the interconnected stories.
Premise
Beginning five years after the events of the film Return of the Jedi and the fall of the Galactic Empire, The Mandalorian follows Din Djarin, a lone Mandalorian bounty hunter working in the outer reaches of the galaxy. He is hired by Imperial remnant forces to retrieve the child Grogu, but instead goes on the run to protect the infant. While looking to reunite Grogu with his kind, he is pursued by former Imperial commander Moff Gideon, who wants to exploit Grogu's connection to the Force. The duo then travel to Mandalore so Djarin can redeem himself for the transgression of removing his helmet.Episodes
Season 1 (2019)
Season 2 (2020)
Season 3 (2023)
Cast and characters
stars as Din Djarin / The Mandalorian, the series' title character. Pascal compared Djarin, a lone bounty hunter with advanced combat skills and "questionable moral character", to Clint Eastwood. The character's real name is not given until "Chapter 8: Redemption", but Pascal accidentally revealed it early in November 2019. His bounty in "Chapter 1: The Mandalorian" is "the Child"—colloquially known as "Baby Yoda" by viewers—an infant of the same species as Yoda, created with animatronics and puppetry. He becomes the Mandalorian's ward, and is revealed to be named Grogu in "Chapter 13: The Jedi". The Mandalorian is also portrayed by stunt doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder.The first season features several recurring co-stars, including Carl Weathers as Greef Karga, leader of a bounty hunter guild; Werner Herzog as "the Client", an enigmatic man; Omid Abtahi as Dr. Penn Pershing, a scientist working for the Client; Nick Nolte as the voice of Kuiil, an Ugnaught moisture farmer who helps the Mandalorian; Taika Waititi as the voice of IG-11, a bounty hunter droid; Gina Carano as Cara Dune, a former Rebel shock trooper turned mercenary; Giancarlo Esposito as Moff Gideon, a former Imperial officer; and Emily Swallow as "the Armorer", a Mandalorian who forges armor and equipment from beskar steel.
Esposito, Carano, Weathers, and Abtahi returned for the second season. Several actors appear as characters from previous Star Wars media, including Timothy Olyphant as Cobb Vanth, Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett, Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan Kryze, Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano, and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. Other recurring co-stars for the season include Amy Sedaris as Peli Motto, reprising her role from the first season; Misty Rosas, the on-set performer for Kuiil in the first season, as the Frog Lady; Mercedes Varnado as Koska Reeves; and Ming-Na Wen as Fennec Shand, also reprising her first season role.
Sackhoff returns to star in the third season, while Swallow, Weathers, Sedaris, Abtahi, Varnado, and Esposito returned as co-stars. Wayne and Crowder receive co-star credit beginning with the third season.
Production
Background
Star Wars creator George Lucas began development on a live-action Star Wars television series known as Underworld in early 2009. More than 50 scripts were written for the series by 2012, but they were deemed too expensive to produce. In January 2013, ABC president Paul Lee said his network would be discussing potential live-action Star Wars television series with Lucasfilm after the latter was sold by Lucas to ABC's parent company the Walt Disney Company in October 2012. In November 2017, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that Disney and Lucasfilm were developing a live-action Star Wars television series for the new streaming service Disney+.Development
While working on The Lion King, a photo-realistic remake of the 1994 animated film, in 2017, director Jon Favreau pitched an idea he had for a Star Wars television series featuring Mandalorians to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. Dave Filoni, executive producer on the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, had also been conceiving a Mandalorian-focused series, and Kennedy suggested that he and Favreau meet to discuss their ideas. Favreau and Filoni had previously met at the Skywalker Ranch when Favreau was working on Iron Man and Filoni was working on the first season of The Clone Wars, and Favreau subsequently voiced the Mandalorian character Pre Vizsla in The Clone Wars for Filoni. When Favreau met with Filoni about his series idea, they were able to combine Filoni's knowledge of Mandalorian history with Favreau's lone-gunslinger concept. Filoni also drew a doodle of a baby of the same species as the Star Wars character Yoda which became "The Child". Favreau wanted to explore the "scum and villainy" of the Star Wars universe following the events of the film Return of the Jedi. He began spending several hours at the end of each day developing the series while he was directing The Lion King.Lucasfilm announced that Favreau would write and executive produce a new Star Wars series for Disney+ in March 2018. Kennedy added that the series was an opportunity for a diverse group of writers and directors to be hired to create Star Wars stories after the franchise's films had been criticized for being written and directed solely by white men. In May, Favreau stated that he had written scripts for four of the series' eight episodes before being officially hired for the project. On October 3, Favreau announced that the series was titled The Mandalorian and revealed the premise for the show. The following day, Lucasfilm announced that Filoni, Kennedy, and Colin Wilson would executive produce the series alongside Favreau, with Karen Gilchrist acting as co-executive producer. The series premiere was set to be available with the launch of Disney+ in November 2019. Star Pedro Pascal described the series as taking the space Western undertones from the Star Wars films "and infusing it with steroids".
In July 2019, Favreau confirmed that there would be a second season of the series and that he had begun writing it. Iger announced in February 2020 that the second season would premiere that October. By late April, Favreau had been writing a third season for "a while" and further development on the season was beginning. In September, co-star Giancarlo Esposito said the second season would "start to lay the groundwork for the depth and breadth that's going to come in season 3 and season 4, where you're really gonna start to get answers". Rick Famuyiwa, who directed in the first two seasons, was made an executive producer for the third season.
Favreau was writing a fourth season by late May 2022, and said it was being informed by the spin-off series Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew. Writing for the season was completed by February 2023, with pre-production occurring by that April. Filming was expected to begin in September. However, this was delayed by the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike and the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Lucasfilm then re-evaluated their plans for the franchise and decided to prioritize a film, The Mandalorian and Grogu, instead. It was unclear whether the fourth season would still be made because there was potential for future Mandalorian stories to instead be told through film sequels if the first film was a success. In November 2025, Favreau stated that he still had all the scripts for the fourth season and the film had become "more of its own thing" due to the changes needed to fit a film structure rather than that of a weekly television series. James Whitbrook at Gizmodo said the existence of scripts for a fourth season did not mean one would be made, and if the season did get made it was unclear whether re-writes would be necessary to work around the film.