The Mandalorian is moving away from the small screen, which explains why there’s no news about season 4. Star Wars is best known as a film franchise, but Lucasfilm has focused on Disney+ since 2019. This phase began with The Mandalorian, which premiered alongside the launch of Disney+ to rave reviews.

There’s a sense in which The Mandalorian became Disney+’s flagship show, and it set Lucasfilm up as a major force on the streaming service. But everything has changed, and the fact The Mandalorian season 4 isn’t happening has left viewers taken aback. But it’s all because of a change in corporate strategy, one that will redefine Star Wars.

The Mandalorian Season 4’s Scripts Were Written

The Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau confirmed he was working on scripts for The Mandalorian season 4 as far back as May 2022. He didn’t provide another update until February 2023, when he confirmed season 4 was fully written:

“Season 4? Yeah, I’ve written it already. We have to know where we are going to tell a fully formed story. So, we had mapped it out, Dave [Filoni] and I. And then slowly you just write each episode. So I was writing it during post-production, because all of it has to feel like a continuation and one full story.”

That year’s Star Wars Celebration featured a whole host of announcements, amid reports that Lucasfilm had been told to “ramp up” production on movies rather than TV shows again. This included the news that Dave Filoni was working on a Mandalorian-era movie that would presumably tie up the so-called “Mandoverse” shows.

At that stage, it was ᴀssumed The Mandalorian season 4 would be essential setup for the movie.

Lucasfilm Changed Plans, And The Mandalorian Is Becoming A Movie

Plans changed. In January 2024, Lucasfilm announced that the show was instead heading to the big screen. “I have loved telling stories set in the rich world that George Lucas created,” Favreau said in a press release. “The prospect of bringing the Mandalorian and his apprentice Grogu to the big screen is extremely exciting.“

THR reported that Lucasfilm had re-evaluated the franchise during the Hollywood writers’ strikes. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy later explained this was because they felt The Mandalorian could bring in a new range of viewers. As she told ᴅᴇᴀᴅline:

“What we’ve really enjoyed about the streaming space is we’ve been able to experiment. It’s harder to do that in the movie space. And now I think that that’s why it feels so good to be able to move into a Mandalorian movie as we’re coming off of three seasons of a very successful show. We’ve actually built an audience for that, and we gave the young audience an opportunity to enter Star Wars at a different place and not feel like you have to have seen everything. It can become their Star Wars. And that, I think is, is the fun storytelling challenge.”

Lucasfilm recently released the first trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu, which is scheduled for a 2026 release.

The Mandalorian Season 4’s Scripts Appear To Have Been Adapted For The Movie

Principal pH๏τography on The Mandalorian and Grogu began swiftly, in June 2024. This led most to believe Jon Favreau had simply adapted his scripts for The Mandalorian season 4, an approach that would make sense. It’s important to note, after all, that Dave Filoni’s Mandoverse movie is still the final destination – meaning the route hasn’t changed, just the medium.

We don’t yet know what the future will hold in store for Din Djarin after The Mandalorian and Grogu. Lucasfilm no doubt hope this will be enough of a hit to turn The Mandalorian into a film franchise in its own right, and the current corporate priority – to push movies, not the same stream of shows – means it’s seriously unlikely we’ll ever see a season 4.