“Willow” creator Jon Kasdan has broken his silence about the show’s removal from Disney+.
“I’ve been quiet on this news that #Willow is leaving @DisneyPlus ’cause… I’m kinda into it,” Kasdan wrote on Twitter. “I grew up at a time when @Disney movies were periodically re-released and not available to own, and it made them… more special.”
The show will be available to stream until May 26 on the service. Several other titles such as “Big Shot” on Disney+ and Hulu’s “Dollface,” “Y: The Last Man” will also leave their respective streamers that day.
“I worry about many things … but NONE of them are that #Willow will never be available again, either on @DisneyPlus or perhaps… someplace else,” his tweet continued. “& ya never know where that could lead… stranger things have happened. So grateful for all the love and enthusiasm; it’s truly what keeps these worlds alive.”
The fantasy series, starring Warwick Davis, who reprises his role as the title character from Ron Howard’s 1988 movie, premiered Nov. 30, 2022. After one season, it was announced in March that the show wouldn’t return, at least on on Disney+, for a second season.
Kasdan previously tweeted that the news of a full-on, final cancellation wouldn’t be correct to confirm, just that the show’s cast has been released “for other series opportunities that may arise for them in the coming year.”
“Willow” won’t resume filming within the next 12 months among a general slowdown of streaming production across the industry, according to Kasdan.
“The scripts we’ve been working on require just as many actors (from our first season) with whom no such contractual hold exists,” Kasdan’s previous statement reads. “Nothing prevented Annabelle Davis, for example, from taking another show, but you better believe Mims appears in every single VOLUME II chapter.”
Fans protested the cancellation of a story containing a queer romance when the buzz of potential cancellation began.
