“Willow” creator Jon Kasdan has addressed reports from earlier this week that the fantasy series has been canceled after one season.
In a statement posted to Twitter Friday morning, Kasdan, in an attempt to clarify the “juicy” and “splashy” headlines he saw online, that Lucasfilm and the production team made a decision last week to “release our main cast for other series opportunities that may arise for them in the coming year.” He added that he feels “fairly confident that, if asked, neither I, nor the folks at Lucasfilm, would or have actually characterized” their predicament as a full-on, final cancellation.
“With all the TV and movies in production around the world, it feels unfair to limit an actor’s availability without a clear sense of when you’re going to need them again,” he explained. “It’s further trivialized by the simple reality that the scripts we’ve been working on require just as many actors (from our first season) with whom no such contractual hold exists. Nothing prevented Annabelle Davis, for example, from taking another show, but you better believe Mims appears in every single Volume II chapter.”
He noted that Willow “won’t resume filming in the next 12 months,” citing a slowdown in the production of streaming shows across the entire industry.”
“But here’s what’s equally true: with the enthusiastic support of Lucasfilm and Disney, we’ve developed and written what we hope is a brain-meltingly fun, richer, darker, and better Volume II, which builds on the characters and story of our first eight chapters (The Wyrm survives!!),” Kasdan continued. “Volume II is all about courage, desire, acceptance, and the comedy and beauty to be found in even the darkest places and moments. It’s about the enemies we must inevitably confront, both without and, often far more insidiously, from within. But above all, it’s about the ineffable and enduring magic of friendship.”
The creator added that he has “total confidence that, if an appetite for more Willow persists, Disney, Lucasfilm and this amazing cast and crew will satisfy it.”
The first season of “Willow,” which continued the story of Ron Howard’s beloved 1988 movie and brought back original cast member Warwick Davis as the title character, premiered on Nov. 30, 2022. It co-starred Ellie Bamber, Ruby Cruz, Erin Kellyman, Amer Chadha-Patel and Tony Revolor.
Kasdan wrote the pilot and served as co-showrunner with Wendy Mericle, Ron Howard and writer Bob Dolman. Kathleen Kennedy and Michelle Rejwan also executive produced for Lucasfilm.
“I love everyone I’ve had the tremendous good fortune to collaborate with these past nine years, and I couldn’t be more excited for what lies ahead,” he concluded. “Ignore the bird, follow the river, I promise it’ll take you where you need to go.”
