ABC exec says live-action Star Wars TV series won’t happen until after the movies

In August, ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey spoke briefly about the network’s partnership with Disney and Lucasfilm, and the desire to create a live-action Star Wars television series.

Now, in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Disney-ABC Television president Ben Sherwood said that if it does happen, it won’t be for quite some time. While the network is focusing on the animated Star Wars series, Star Wars Rebels, Lucasfilm is focusing on the slate of feature-length films coming out over the next few years. Negotiations and talks for a live-action series couldn’t begin, Sherwood added, until the films were out.

"Somewhere we hope in a galaxy not too far away there will be a television show that will air on one of our networks," Sherwood said. "But I wouldn’t get anybody’s hopes up too high. They have a lot of movies to make between now and then."

Sherwood added that while the network is hopeful it will eventually have a live-action series, ABC was in talks with Lucasfilm and Disney to create another animated Star Wars series that would run alongside Rebels, but didn’t provide any additional information on what that could look like.

A live-action Star Wars TV show, named Star Wars: Underworld at the time, was in development in 2005, but was canceled in 2010 following 50 different pilot drafts, a barrage of writers joining and leaving the project, and creator George Lucas explaining that ultimately they couldn’t make the show they wanted because of budget constraints.

The next Star Wars project, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, will be released on Dec. 16 with Episode VIII due out next year on Dec. 15, 2017.