“Willow” was one of the year’s biggest (and best) streaming surprises.
A sequel series to warmly remembered Ron Howard fantasy film from 1988 (also called “Willow”), this new iteration was developed by Jonathan Kasdan, who worked with Howard (and Lucasfilm) on 2018’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and is, to put it lightly, a “Willow” super-fan.
What made the show so much fun was that it didn’t rely on an encyclopedic knowledge of the film’s mythological underpinnings and never leaned too heavily on lore. Instead, all viewers needed to know (or remember) was that Willow (played once again by Warwick Davis) was a young sorcerer tasked with saving a baby from the forces of evil. Now Willow is an older sorcerer and the young baby has grown into an adult woman (played by English actress Ellie Bamber). Other characters might have a connection to characters from the movie, but everything is cleanly explained and always exciting.
But the question remains: will “Willow” return for a second season?
TheWrap spoke to Kasdan about what his plans are for the future of “Willow” and whether he knows if the show is coming back. Just a word of warning – it goes into specifics so consider this a massive spoiler warning.
Every episode of “Willow” starts with a book opening and a new chapter title revealed (this last chapter was called “Children of the Wyrm”). During the closing credits for the final episode, the shot cuts back to the book, which is now being closed. It’s placed on a shelf and amongst others – the spine it reads“Volume I.” “Volume II” and “Volume III” are plainly visible. This suggests two more seasons for the show. Or does it?
“I honestly have no idea. These shows take so long to make. And particularly in the machinery of a company like Lucasfilm, the attitude that I’m presented with is, “Get typing kid and we’ll let you know if it’s not happening,’” Kasdan explained. “I’m proceeding with enthusiasm and excitement. We certainly have stories we’d love to tell and we think there’s a shot.”
Still, Kasdan stresses, that the mid-credits scene was “not a tease of any kind.”
“My personality comes from movies and for me, that three-act structure is so ingrained in who I am, that when we got to the end of this season, it really felt like it was the first act of a movie,” Kasdan explained. “My expectation as a viewer and as a fan is that when the stories begin, the narrator or author has some intention for where they might end and not an expectation that they’re just going to go on forever, so they can keep adding additions to their house. My intent with this and as a fan first was that we were going to tell a story and it was going to be a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. And if it ended after one season, that was not what any of us were intending.”
Part of what made these final moments of “Willow” extra powerful was the fist-pumping needle-drop, which eschewed the season’s proclivity towards modern covers of ’80s classics and instead went with the real thing: Dire Straits’ 1985 single “Money for Nothing.”
“I knew it was going to be [the most] contentious drop of the season,” Kasdan said. They actually attempted other songs for the sequence but none of them had the elemental force of the Dire Straits track. (And yes they did also consider having a modern band cover the song, too.) “It wasn’t as powerful. It hits you in the depths of your belly somehow,” Kasdan explained. “And we that certainly was the overriding thing.”
The other thing that made the tune stand out was the lyrics (and, no, not the gross homophobic ones, which have mercifully been removed from the “Willow” drop) and how those lyrics related to the themes of the show. “If you read anything about the song was born out of him [Mark Knopfler] overhearing some guys talking in an electronic store. And the theme of it that always has stuck with me and been relevant to me is the idea of wanting the rewards without the work, and the thing that offers you that shortcut to the happiness that you want. It felt in sync with the promise of the Wyrm and this force that is the counterweight to all the responsibility and the heaviness that comes with being a hero. That’s why it landed there.”
And it really did give you a great note to end on, literally, something that Kasdan was very keenly aware of, especially if the show returns for future (now promised) “volumes.” “The sensation that no other song or drop really replicated was [it] put the foot the pedal down as hard as you can,” Kasdan said.
As that guitar shreds, the camera cranes up and we get a look at one of the most iconic creatures from the first movie: the two-headed dragon known as the Eborsisk (named by original designer and genius stop-motion animator Phil Tippett for Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel). The dragon is one of Kasdan’s favorite creatures, along with the Rancor (another Tippett creation) from “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.” It also, once again, serves as a tease for what’s to come. “We wanted to touch on it. But we knew it wasn’t inherent to the story that we were telling this season. But it was inherent in the promise of ‘Willow’ as a world,” Kasdan said. “We wanted to seed it in there in a way that promised that there’s there’s a bestiary of creatures out there and they’re in service of darkness and some are in service of light.”
One question still lingering, going into the second volume (fingers-crossed) is the whereabouts of Val Kilmer’s character Madmartigan and whether or not he’ll make an appearance in future installments. (Vilmer was scheduled to be a part of the season but couldn’t make the trip overseas to where the show was filming; his son Jack provides Madmartigan’s voice in the show.) “My hope is and I think that this may be something that people have to speculate on to get to but I think it’s even more specific than that,” Kasdan said. Madmartigan is trapped in the dark realm of the Wyrm, where the series ends off, full of creatures like the two-headed dragon and other demonic forces.
“That is where he is — he’s in there somewhere, down in that world. And whether we can find him or not … to be honest it’s not even an open question. I know the answer,” Kasdan teases. “There’s the promise of more with Madmartigan; his influence in this world is too large to leave it where we’ve left it. His story isn’t over.” In other words: pray for “Volume II.”
