• Dave Filoni, newly named Lucasfilm president, is prioritizing story quality over release quotas for Star Wars
• The Mandalorian and Grogu opens May 22 — the franchise’s first theatrical film since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker
• Star Wars: Starfighter starring Ryan Gosling follows in May 2027, with Ahsoka Season 2 also due that year
• A Simon Kinberg trilogy rumored to become Episodes X, XI, and XII is among the projects believed to still be in motion
• Filoni says fans have known him for 20 years and should have a good sense of what to expect under his leadership

Dave Filoni has been telling Star Wars stories for two decades. Now he’s in charge of them. And with The Mandalorian and Grogu arriving in theaters on May 22 — the franchise’s first big-screen outing since The Rise of Skywalker landed to mixed reviews back in 2019 — the newly minted Lucasfilm president is finally starting to sketch out what the galaxy far, far away looks like under his watch.

In a new interview with Collider, Filoni was asked directly about how many films and shows he envisions putting out each year. His answer was characteristically measured — but there was real substance underneath it.

“For me right now, rather than dealing with hard numbers like that, I’m just looking at the stories and the potential and planning what I’d like to do,” Filoni said. “I believe in having an overarching idea and then saying, ‘Okay, it’s this many of that, and then we can have that.’ There are certain things that have been in motion already that, obviously, I want to continue. Jon [Favreau] and I have had a great partnership for many years now, telling stories. So, I look at the stories that I’m kind of planning and architecting, and I look at other creative talents that bring us, also, great stories, and I just try to find a way to make them all work.”

It’s a pointed contrast to how things operated during the Disney era’s most chaotic stretch, when Star Wars films were hitting theaters annually from 2015 through 2019 — a pace that ultimately burned out audiences and left a trail of cancelled projects in its wake. For every film that made it to screens, several more quietly died in development. Filoni’s philosophy seems to be: fewer promises, better stories.

What’s Actually Coming — and When

The Mandalorian and Grogu, which Filoni co-wrote and produced alongside director Jon Favreau, is the first piece of that puzzle. After that, Ahsoka Season 2 is set for early 2027 on Disney+, followed in May 2027 by Star Wars: Starfighter — a standalone film directed by Shawn Levy with a stacked ensemble that includes Ryan Gosling, Aaron Pierre, Amy Adams, Mia Goth, and Matt Smith. Filoni was effusive about that one: “Shawn Levy did a great job with Starfighter. So there’s a lot.”

On the animation side, Maul – Shadow Lord — which Filoni wrote and created — just wrapped its first season on Disney+ and has already been renewed for Season 2. Voice actor Sam Witwer has confirmed the team had been working on that second season for some time. “There’s a lot on my plate which is exciting, not just in live-action but animation, like Maul, which has been very fun, and they’re driving forward,” Filoni said.

He also teased a re-release of Episode IV: A New Hope as part of the broader celebration ahead. “And the re-release of Episode IV. There’s so much exciting stuff coming for Star Wars fans.”

The Bigger Picture: Sequels, Trilogies, and Loose Threads

When Filoni says “there are certain things that have been in motion already that I want to continue,” the fan community has plenty of material to read into. A trilogy conceived by Simon Kinberg is widely rumored to become Episodes X, XI, and XII, and may incorporate the Rey Skywalker sequel that director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy had been developing. James Mangold’s “Dawn of the Jedi” origin film, Taika Waititi’s long-gestating project, and a Lando Calrissian spin-off from Donald Glover are all still technically on the table — though their statuses remain genuinely unclear.

What reads loudest in Filoni’s quote, though, is the Favreau partnership. The two have built the modern era of Star Wars storytelling together — from The Mandalorian‘s breakout debut through The Book of Boba Fett and beyond. The suggestion that their collaborative work will continue strongly implies the Mando and Grogu story isn’t ending with this film.

Filoni himself was previously announced as the director of an untitled film that would tie together the events of The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Book of Boba Fett — essentially a theatrical culmination of the interconnected Mandalorian-verse saga he’s been building for years. With Ahsoka Season 2 still in production, the timeline for that project remains open.

Filoni Isn’t Going Anywhere Creatively

One thing he was unambiguous about: taking the president title doesn’t mean stepping back from the actual work. Between Maul – Shadow Lord, Ahsoka Season 2, and overseeing productions like Starfighter, Filoni is still very much in the trenches as a creator.

“Fans have known me now for 20 years and that I’ve worked with and told Star Wars stories, so I think they have a good idea of what to expect,” he said. “I’ve so far really enjoyed collaborating with everybody, and we are well on our way. The future’s in motion now, so it’s exciting.”

The man who gave the world Ahsoka Tano — now one of the most beloved characters in the entire franchise — is now the one holding the keys to all of it. The clearest next signal of where things are headed will likely come at D23 Expo in August, or at Star Wars Celebration in April 2027. But for now, the galaxy has a new architect. And he sounds like he knows exactly what he wants to build.

The post Dave Filoni Lays Out His Vision for Star Wars’ Future appeared first on Cream.

• Disney confirmed at its upfront presentation that Ahsoka Season 2 has been delayed to early 2027.
• The show was previously expected to premiere before the end of 2026.
• The delay comes as Star Wars is already having a massive year with The Mandalorian and Grogu hitting theaters May 22, 2026.
• Dave Filoni serves as showrunner and creator on Ahsoka, and is also involved in the theatrical film.
• The news lands amid a broader Star Wars moment — prequel trilogy films are surging on Disney+ streaming charts for the first time.

Ahsoka fans are going to have to wait a little longer. Disney officially confirmed at its upfront presentation that Ahsoka Season 2 has been pushed to early 2027 — a significant shift from earlier expectations that the show would return before the end of this year.

The delay is a disappointment for the show’s passionate fanbase, but it’s not exactly a shock given how much Star Wars has on its plate right now. The franchise is in the middle of one of its biggest theatrical moments in years, with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opening in theaters on May 22, 2026. That film brings Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin and everyone’s favorite tiny green Force-sensitive companion to the big screen after three seasons of The Mandalorian — and it’s a genuine event, not just another streaming drop. The cast alone signals how seriously Disney is taking it: Sigourney Weaver joins as Colonel Ward, a New Republic officer, and Jeremy Allen White voices Rotta the Hutt, son of Jabba himself. Even Martin Scorsese shows up as the voice of an Ardennian shopkeeper, which is exactly the kind of sentence you never expected to write in 2026.

Dave Filoni — who created and serves as showrunner on Ahsoka — is deeply embedded in that film too, returning as New Republic pilot Trapper Wolf. It’s a lot of Star Wars to manage at once, and pushing Season 2 to give it the proper runway makes sense creatively, even if the wait stings.

What the Delay Means for the Bigger Star Wars Picture

Ahsoka Season 1 debuted in August 2023 and immediately became one of Disney+’s signature Star Wars titles, weaving together threads from Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars in ways that rewarded longtime fans while still pulling in newcomers. Season 2 moving to 2027 means there will be roughly a three-and-a-half-year gap between seasons — long by any standard, though not unheard of in the prestige streaming era.

The upside is that the Star Wars universe isn’t going quiet in the meantime. Beyond The Mandalorian and Grogu, the franchise is experiencing a genuine cultural reset right now. On Disney+, the prequel trilogy has been climbing the streaming charts in a way that would have seemed unthinkable when The Phantom Menace first hit theaters in 1999. The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are sitting in the platform’s top 10 alongside A New Hope — a sign that the generation that grew up with Anakin and Obi-Wan has fully claimed those films as their own comfort watches. The Clone Wars deserves a lot of credit for that rehabilitation, slowly deepening the prequel era’s lore until it clicked for audiences who’d been skeptical.

Disney is also making moves at the parks. Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge — which launched during the height of sequel trilogy discourse and never quite connected the way the park hoped — is getting an expansion that brings Original Trilogy characters and John Williams’ iconic score back into the land. Meet-and-greets with Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and Darth Vader are coming to a space that was built around a planet most casual fans had never heard of. It’s a clear-eyed acknowledgment that fans want the Star Wars they grew up loving, and that canon doesn’t have to be a cage.

Taken together, it paints a picture of a franchise that’s actively recalibrating — leaning into what works, giving its prestige streaming shows more time to get it right, and letting the theatrical event of The Mandalorian and Grogu carry the flag for now.

For Ahsoka fans specifically, early 2027 is the target. That’s a long time to sit with the Season 1 ending — but if Filoni and his team use the extra runway well, it could be worth every month of the wait.

The post Ahsoka Season 2 Delayed to Early 2027, Disney Confirms appeared first on Cream.

• Darth Vader appears in the Maul: Shadow Lord season finale and defeats Maul in a long-awaited duel
• Lucasfilm co-president Dave Filoni explains Vader as a “destroyer” with no character — only rage and destruction
• Filoni contrasts Vader’s perfected evil with Maul’s “broken, scrambling version” of the dark side
• Vader doesn’t speak a single word in the finale, a deliberate creative choice tied to Filoni’s philosophy
• The ending sets up Shadow Lord season 2, with Maul sacrificing Master Daki to secure Devon as his apprentice

Nearly 30 years after they were both introduced to Star Wars fans, Darth Vader and Maul finally came face to face in the season finale of Maul: Shadow Lord — and Lucasfilm co-president Dave Filoni has a lot to say about what that clash actually means.

Vader arrives at the end of episode 9 and spends the entirety of episode 10 dismantling every attempt at resistance from Maul, Jedi Master Eeko-Dio Daki, and young Devon Izara. He doesn’t taunt. He doesn’t negotiate. He doesn’t speak a single word. And according to Filoni, that was entirely the point.

“The key to Vader for me is that he’s not Anakin,” Filoni explained at a screening event for the two-part finale. “He doesn’t recognize that. He can’t. Anything that reminds him of Anakin, he’s going to destroy. So when he sees a Jedi, he’s going to destroy the Jedi, because the Jedi would remind him — unconsciously or consciously — that he betrayed all of his friends and everything he knew and the life he grew up with. For what? For nothing. He lost everything. He made a bad trade. He was lied to. He was deceived. He can’t accept that truth.”

It’s a bleak read on one of cinema’s most iconic villains, but it tracks perfectly with how Vader moves through the finale — locked in, vicious, mechanical in his destruction. The comparison Filoni kept returning to was the hallway sequence in Rogue One. “He doesn’t talk to those guys,” Filoni said. “He’s going to destroy them. He has one mission, and all of his remorse and all of his anger and all of his hate is in every swing that he does. That’s how it’s resolved.”

A More Perfected Version of Evil

What makes the Vader-Maul confrontation so loaded isn’t just the spectacle of it — it’s what Vader represents to Maul specifically. Filoni was direct about the thematic intention: “The challenge with using Darth Vader here is to show Maul the horror of what you can become when you have power and evil come together in a more perfected version than what Maul is, which is a broken, scrambling version of evil.”

That framing recontextualizes the whole season. Maul has been the protagonist of Shadow Lord — we’ve been rooting for him, invested in his goals — but Filoni and supervising director Brad Rau were careful not to let fans forget who they’re actually cheering for. The finale drives that home in the most brutal way possible: as Vader overwhelms them both, Maul quietly uses the Force to push Daki closer to the Dark Lord, then slips into the shadows to watch Devon witness her master’s death.

“We love Maul so much, but even though we are now cheering for him with our good guys, we needed to showcase that he is a very bad guy,” Rau said. “That was really important to me. And he does a move that leads to the tragic demise of Daki while he waits in the shadows, watching Devon. She unleashes her rage like never before. It is not the final lesson, but it is a very big, terrible lesson that he’s teaching her.”

It’s a gut-punch of a moment — and a reminder that Maul’s version of evil, however charismatic and survivalist, is still evil.

“Vader Is Better” — And That’s a Problem

Some fans online took issue with how lopsided the duel felt, arguing that Maul — battered and broken by the time Vader emerged from the jungles of Janix — never stood a real chance. Filoni’s response to that debate was pretty simple: correct. “Vader is better,” he said. “More powerful, more destructive, more of a weapon for the Emperor, which is a problem.”

And Filoni drew a clear line between what makes each of them who they are. “Maul is struggling to let go of hate,” he said, “but Anakin got consumed by it. If he were to face what he did, it would destroy him more. I find a lot of pity for him because of what he did and the depth of his treachery. And that’s Darth Vader. Anakin’s trapped in there somewhere, and Darth Vader won’t let him surface.”

That last part — Anakin trapped inside Vader — is where things get philosophically interesting, and a little contested. Filoni’s position is that the key to portraying Vader is to strip away character entirely: “He doesn’t care. Darth Vader does not care. He does not have compassion. He does not see you. He sees the thing he wants to destroy, and he will do that.” Some Star Wars fans and critics have pushed back on that reading, pointing to moments across comics, novels, and the Obi-Wan Kenobi series where Anakin’s love and grief still surface — however briefly — through the mask. The debate over whether Anakin and Vader are truly separate entities or inextricably the same is one that’s followed the character for decades.

Filoni acknowledged the complexity without fully resolving it. He pointed to Vader’s encounters with Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars Rebels as another example of the same destructive impulse: “She, of all people, would remind him of who he was. He’s like, ‘I gotta destroy that. I can’t face that.’ Obi-Wan, he wants to destroy him.” The only person who ever broke through, Filoni said, was Luke — and even then, it wasn’t immediate. “Only his son, only his offspring, could make him spark, could make him see something. But at first, selfishly, ‘You and I can rule the galaxy.’ That’s where he goes. He doesn’t come all the way back. It’s a long process.”

What Comes Next for Devon — and Season 2

Maul’s sacrifice of Daki isn’t just a character beat — it’s a setup. With her master gone and her grief weaponized by Maul’s manipulation, Devon is now fully on the path her reluctant teacher has been steering her toward all season. Speculation has already started swirling that Devon could eventually become Darth Talon, a character from George Lucas’s original sequel trilogy plans.

Rau was careful not to confirm or deny anything. “We can’t give away too much,” he said. “We have heard a lot of the fan theories and speculations, and we are fascinated by them. We’ll just put it at that, leave it at that.”

All ten episodes of Maul: Shadow Lord are streaming now on Disney+. Season 2 has not yet been officially announced — but given the way that finale landed, it’s hard to imagine the story stops here.

The post Filoni Breaks Down What Makes Vader and Maul Different Evils appeared first on Cream.