Cassian Andor series to bring back unused Star Wars characters, creators

A month after star Diego Luna (Narcos: Mexico) revealed some details on the highly-anticipated Disney+ series focusing on his Rogue One character Cassian Andor and now franchise visual effects artist Neal Scanlan has opened up about his work on the series, including the possibilities to bring back characters and creatures unused or sidelined in the films.

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In an interview with MovieWeb for the home release of the finale to nine-part Skywalker Saga, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Scanlan discussed that working with the new streaming service is opening up doors to bring to life various beings from the universe not previously explored and that “it feels different than working on a movie.”

“It certainly doesn’t feel like we are making any compromises,” Scanlan said. “It’s the same creative conditions in every department to do what we can do. We also have this backlog of characters. A lot of the characters that we built for all of the films either didn’t make it to the final cut, because that’s just the way that the film process happens, or that they are seen so momentarily that there is this wonderful second opportunity to bring back some of the characters that we’ve made and bring them to this new storyline in a more, shall we say, integrated way. I think it’s going to be tremendous. I find that it’s a second opportunity for everything that we’ve made, plus the opportunity of moving TV along, in a sense, at what will not at all be diminished as far as the level of quality, the level of things that we are going to try and achieve.”

The series will follow the adventures of rebel spy Cassian Andor during the formative years of the Rebellion and prior to the events of Rogue One. The spy thriller series will explore tales of espionage and daring missions to restore hope to a galaxy in the grip of a ruthless Empire. Joining Diego Luna is Rogue One standout Alan Tudyk will return to reprise his role as the former Imperial enforcer droid K-2SO, who was reprogrammed to help the Rebel Alliance.

Tony Gilroy, who directed the reshoots for Rogue One, reportedly rewrote the pilot episode for the series. Gilroy will also direct several episodes. Stephen Schaffer (The Americans) will serve as the series’ showrunner.

RELATED: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker VFX Breakdown Revealed

In Rogue One, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.

Luna starred alongside Felicity Jones in the film with Mads Mikkelsen, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Riz Ahmed, plus Forest Whitaker and Ben Mendelsohn. It remains to be seen if any of these characters will appear in the series.

The new Star Wars live-action series will exclusively premiere on Disney’s upcoming streaming service Disney+.