Credit: LucasfilmFollowing the return of Bob Iger as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, the House of Mouse has been making big changes and bigger cuts. Amid a period of immense uncertainty, where Disney projects are failing to land with the traditional flair fans are used to, Iger and his team have taken an axe to their four-year-old streaming service.
And the cost of a purged Lucasfilm title has just been revealed.
Disney+ debuted four years ago in 2019 and quickly became one of the most subscribed streaming services thanks to its extensive Disney library of animated classics, shorts, and nostalgic live-action feature films. Add The Mandalorian to the mix, and Disney’s streaming service really took off.
Lucasfilm’s Star Wars project, The Mandalorian, came at a time when fans were heavily divided thanks to Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi (2019). The Disney era of Star Wars — the sequel trilogy — has been contested for years, but The Mandalorian overwhelmingly managed to stitch most of the fissures back together.
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The Mandalorian was eventually followed by a second season, the spinoff, The Book of Boba Fett, and the animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch. Obi-Wan Kenobi came next, and then Star Wars: Andor became the most critically acclaimed of the bunch when it debuted in September 2022.
Earlier this year, fans returned to the post-original trilogy pre-sequel trilogy New Republic Era of the galaxy far, far away with The Mandalorian Season 3, and in just a matter of days, fan-favorite former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano will star in her own solo live-action series, Ahsoka.
For Lucasfilm, the steady stream of projects has been relatively well-received, with only The Book of Boba Fett being somewhat challenged by both fans and critics. But while Star Wars holds strong in the streaming arena, Lucasfilm’s other project was purged from the streamer just months after debuting.
Back in 1988, Willow was released. The George Lucas-produced high fantasy adventure was directed by Ron Howard and starred Val Kilmer as Madmartigan, Warwick Davis as Willow Ufgood, and Joanne Whalley as Sorsha. Fast-forward to 2022, and Lucasfilm would revive Willow as a new original streaming series on Disney+.
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Davies returned in his role of Willow Ufgood and was joined by Ellie Bamber as Elora Danan, Tony Revolori as Prince Graydon, Ruby Cruz as Princess Kit Tanthalos, and Erin Kellyman as Jade. The series was conceived by Lucasfilm and ran for eight episodes in its first season.
But for Willow, it would be an unfortunate end as just six months later, Disney — under the leadership of Bob Iger — would remove the entirety of the series from the streaming service, never to be seen again. And it has now been revealed just what the production cost was for Willow.
Per a report from Forbes, Willow cost $105.9 million in pre-production and filming costs. That number was brought down thanks to schemes in the United Kingdom where the show was filmed, but still, a hefty price to pay for a series that now can only be viewed illegally.
When it was purged from Disney+, writer Jonathan Kasdan admitted he was “kinda into it.”
“I’m kinda into it,” Kasdan, son of Star Wars co-writer Lawrence Kasdan, said in a now-deleted social media post. “I grew up at a time when Disney movies were periodically re-released and not available to own, and it made them… more special.”
Willow was removed from the streamer on May 26, 2023, along with other Disney+ and Hulu television shows as Iger’s Disney carried out intense cost-cutting measures.
Did you catch Lucasfilm’s Willow on Disney+ before it was removed? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!