Is a Knights of the Old Republic Show On the Way?

Television

Disney is dipping into the classics for its next Star Wars project if a new report is to be believed. Scooper Daniel Richtman (via Forbes, as Richtman’s blog is behind a paywall) says that Lucasfilm is developing a new Star Wars show “set during the Knights of the Old Republic era.” This refers to the period in the Knights of the Old Republic video game series that takes place 4,000 years before the original trilogy and involves a “Sith armada” waging war on the Republic and the Jedi. The Knights of the Old Republic games are beloved by many Star Wars fans, and according to Forbes, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said that something related to Knights of the Old Republic was in the works in 2019, so there’s a ring of truth to this rumor. Moreover, there are no new TV shows or seasons of shows on the docket outside of Ahsoka season 2; Andor season 2 has already been completed and will begin airing on April 22, 2025.  

A Knights of the Old Republic show feels like a Disney/Lucasfilm Hail Mary to save the TV division of Star Wars. So far, it hasn’t exactly been a bonanza on Disney+. The Acolyte was canceled, The Mandalorian is being turned into a movie after a terrible third season that nobody liked, and I don’t see Skeleton Crew getting another season. The movies are a mess, too, with a Rey series being planned but pushed back at every turn and The Mandalorian and Grogu hoping people forget about the aforementioned lousy third season. There’s also supposed to be a super-duper-mega-team-up movie after that, with the Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and whoever else they can dig up (deepfake Luke Skywalker, maybe) joining forces to fight Grand Admiral Thrawn, the next big bad who showed up in Ahsoka and failed to impress. But who knows? According to another Daniel Richtman report, if The Mandalorian and Grogu fails to strike box office gold, they’re going to turn the team-up movie into a Disney+ miniseries to end the Thrawn storyline, such as it is. (Have they even mentioned him in anything outside of Ahsoka? I mean, remember how the MCU planted lots of seeds in different movies that led to Thanos and the Infinity Gems? Nothing in the Star Wars shows feels planned to that degree, and Marvel was making a lot of it up as they went along.)

All that is to say, developing a Knights of the Old Republic show seems like a rebrand to me, like they’re trying to draw in disaffected Star Wars fans by giving them something they want while distancing themselves from the disaster they made of everything in the Skywalker era. And it doesn’t sound like a straight adaptation of the games, either; Richtman says the show is set in the Knights of the Old Republic era, meaning it could be almost anything. That may be a blessing in disguise; as much as I’m sure Knights of the Old Republic fans would love an adaptation, do they really trust Disney/Lucasfilm to deliver something that doesn’t leave the game’s legacy in tatters? Moreover, I think this could be their way of leaving themselves options for expanding; if this show is just a story set in that era but far removed from the story of the games, and it does well, they could develop any number of shows set in the same era that are wildly different from each other – kind of like what they tried to do with the post-original trilogy era, only maybe making sure these ones don’t suck. (I know, good luck.) They’d better put some effort into this one; they’re running out of eras to try to restart their failing franchise.

Let us know what you think of a Knights of the Old Republic show in the comments!

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