In the world ofStar Wars , one of the biggest “ what ifs ? ” isStar Wars Underworld . That was the name give to a telecasting show George Lucas and a team at Lucasfilm worked on for years beforeultimately scrapping it . We ’ve always find out that there were dozens of scripts written for the show , which would ’ve been set on Coruscant , showing a whole novel side of a galaxy far , far , off , but little is know beyond that .
In a new interview though , Rick McCallum , who wasGeorge Lucas ’ producer at the time , shared some new details about the long - lose ( but never forgotten ) project . One of the self-aggrandising is that McCallum in reality attempt to budget out what the show could cost and the lowest he ever got it to was $ 40 million per episode . Forty million times 60 instalment equals $ 2.4 billion . No wonder no one wanted to make it . But , it sounds great . Here ’s McCallum thanks to theYoung Indy Chroniclespodcast .
“ I think we had over 60 hand . Third - gulp scripts , ” McCallum says in the above clip . “ Again , the most wonderful writer in the world on it . And again , we created on the dot the same experience for everybody at [ Skywalker ] Ranch , and again just a phenomenal group of gift . ”
A still from test footage for Star Wars Underworld.Image: Stargate Studios
“ And these were coloured . They were sexy , they were red , they were just utterly wonderful . Wonderful , complicated , challenging . I signify , it would have blown up the wholeStar Warsuniverse and Disney decidedly would have never offered George to bribe it [ laughs ] . But it ’s one of the great dashing hopes of our life . But the trouble was each episode was bigger than the films , so the lowest I could get it down to with the engineering that existed then was about 40 million an episode . ”
Even in today ’s globe , probably 30 years after McCallum budgeted thing out , $ 40 million an episode is still a stack . Most of the bigger shows that you could think of — Game of Thrones , The Walking Dead , etc.—usually cost between $ 10 million and $ 20 million an episode . And that ’s still considered very high . Some of the most expensive have happened recently , with Netflix rumored to have spend nigh to $ 30 million per sequence on the newStranger Thingsand Amazon reportedly spend almost $ 60 million each onRings of Power . So for a bigStar Warsshow , $ 40 million is not out of the inquiry today , but it was sure enough out of the question then . ( Also , The Mandaloriancosts significantly less than that . )
For more onStar Wars Underworld , check out this piece we wrote a few year back . It shows test footage McCallum commission to avail betray the show to TV web . It did n’t work out , but it ’s a cool bit of trivium and history , just like this .
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Rick McCallumStar WarsStar Wars Underworld
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