The scrapped TV show George Lucas planned in the early 2000s would have had a massive impact on the Star Wars universe, according to producer Rick McCallum.
Speaking on the Young Indy Chroniclers podcast, McCallum discussed Star Wars: Underworld, which could have ended up costing billions of dollars had the concept come to fruition.
McCallum said he remembers himself and Lucas having “over 60 scripts” for the show with “the most wonderful writers in the world” working on it, and said of the scripts, “These were dark, they were sexy, they were violent.”
He said of the show, “I mean, it would have blown-up the whole Star Wars universe … And Disney definitely would’ve never offered to buy Star Wars from George. It’s one of the great disappointments of our life.”
The show was planned to connect to the video game Star Wars: 1313 – this was also cancelled – and John Williams was in line to score the entire series.
Star Wars: Underworld is reportedly set to cost $40million per episode, a sum on the higher end even now, let alone over a decade ago. Just one series has cost over that amount in history, with The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power coming out at $58million per episode in 2022 to become the most expensive TV series ever made.
If all 60 scripts became their own episodes, the total sum of production would come out to a whopping $2.4billion.
Despite the high figures, HBO were reportedly interested, and Lucas was due to have a meeting with Chris Albrecht, HBO’s CEO at the time. However, the day before, Albrecht was arrested for assault and HBO went on to force him to resign.
In 2012, Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney for $4billion. Since then, they’ve released three movies in the sequel trilogy: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise Of Skywalker. There have also been two standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story, as well as a range of TV series to expand the franchise.
Another movie, The Mandalorian & Grogu, starring Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, Jeremy Allen White and Johnny Coyne and directed by Jon Favreau, is set for release in May 2026, too.
As for Lucas, he was named the richest celebrity in the world in 2024. The director topped Forbes’ annual list of celebrity billionaires with his sizeable $5.5billion fortune.