We’ll cut right to the chase: The rumor that Ewan McGregor has walked away from the upcoming Disney+ “Star Wars” tv series about Obi-Wan Kenobi and that Disney has canceled the show is not true.
Sources with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap on Friday that the story circulating is “totally inaccurate,” and that the show is still moving forward as announced last summer.
The story is actually a hoax created by a clearly-labeled joke Twitter account called @DicsussingFilm. The clue that this story wasn’t on the level should probably have been the obviously misspelled “Dicsussing” in the handle, but in case that didn’t do the trick, the account’s bio says “PARODY ACCOUNT, NOT AFFILIATED WITH @DiscussingFilm.”
What happened is that on Wednesday, “DicsussingFilm” tweeted “Ewan McGregor has exited the ‘OBI-WAN’ Disney+ series due to creative differences. (Source: @disneyplus).” The joke was immediately recognized by the account’s followers, but on Friday a couple of fansites including That Hashtag Show and We Got This Covered took the tweet at face value and ran with it, causing the matter to become a trending Twitter topic.
So, rest easy, people looking forward to the further adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi: The show is still happening, at least for now.
Announced last summer during D23 2019, the Obi-Wan series will take place at some point during the 19-year gap between the end of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” and “Star Wars: A New Hope.” McGregor will once again play the Jedi Master originally portrayed by Alec Guinness and executive produce, alongside series director Deborah Chow and writer Hossein Amini. Jason McGatlin, Lucasfilm’s executive vice president of production, will serve as co-producer.
The project will be the third live-action “Star Wars” series for Disney+, following “The Mandalorian” and the “Rogue One” prequel series centered on Diego Luna’s character, Cassian Andor.