Ewan McGregor still hasn’t quite given up hope on Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2. Speaking at Fan Expo Chicago 2025 (via Popverse), McGregor admitted the show hadn’t quite been what he expected. He was initially bemused because he thought Obi-Wan Kenobi was going to be Star Wars‘ big Disney+ TV show, when it was actually The Mandalorian.

“They brought out Disney+ and they wanted a big splash, and I thought that’s what we were going to be and then just before we made it, the Mandalorian came out. I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I thought we were supposed to be the big splash.’ I thought, ‘Wait a minute, what’s this, what’s this going on here?’ But there would seem to be plenty of room for all of us.”

The Mandalorian‘s success was partly a matter of smart marketing (Grogu was held back as a surprise for the premiere); it was also partly luck, because it released just before the COVID pandemic, which left people stranded inside. But Obi-Wan Kenobi also wasn’t quite the event it should have been.

The proof, sadly, is in the viewership. “Obi-Wan Kenobi’s [viewership] was really high,” Jimmy Doyle, Director and Film & TV analyst at Luminate, told ScreenRant. “But that’s because those first two episodes did mᴀssive viewership. Obi-Wan had a 37% decrease in that first week, and then continued to decrease in following weeks.“

Still, that doesn’t mean McGregor is done with Star Wars. “Somebody give me a job,” he joked. “Come on Disney. We need season 2 for goodness’ sakes. What are we waiting for?” Despite McGregor’s words, though, season 2 simply isn’t going to happen; but that’s not really disappointing at all.

Obi-Wan Kenobi Season 2 Isn’t Going To Happen… But Not For The Reason McGregor Thinks

McGregor is a busy man, and he’s missed a major development in the Star Wars franchise. Two years ago, there were reports Lucasfilm was under orders to “ramp up” the movies. We’re already seeing the results, with The Mandalorian pivoting to the big screen (the first trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu released just this week). Shawn Levy is already shooting another Star Wars movie.

In contrast, there has been no repeat of Disney Investors Day 2020, where Lucasfilm announced a staggering slate of TV shows. Only one live-action Star Wars show is known to be in the works right now, Ahsoka season 2, making it pretty clear that corporate priorities have changed. The Mandalorian season 4’s scripts appear to have been repurposed into a movie.

All this means there’s no way Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2 is going to happen, for one very simple reason; Star Wars is headed back to the big screen, and TV shows aren’t a priority anymore.

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Return Deserves To Be So Much More Than A TV Show

This isn’t bad news, though; it’s the very best of news. The truth is that Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen’s Star Wars return should have been a movie all along, a cinematic event rather than a TV show. That was the original plan, but the initial pivot to Disney+ led to the concept of a trilogy being adapted for streaming.

McGregor is willing to return, and there are surely stories that can be told by skilled writers. But if Star Wars is going to bring him back once more, it won’t be for season 2 of a TV show that didn’t quite perform as well as it deserved to; it will surely be for a movie.

Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2 isn’t going to happen. But even Ewan McGregor shouldn’t find that disappointing; instead, it’s so very encouraging.