8 Moments That Almost Killed Star Wars

For decades before John Favreau came along to save the franchise with The Mandalorian, talk of a live-action Star Wars series made it seem like there was one in development all of the time. A live-action Star Wars show was something fans wanted, but it's a good thing they had to wait until 2020.

Star Wars: Underworld was the working title of a series that was planned to have 100 episodes (of the 400 that were proposed). Fifty hours of footage was shot, but it never came to fruition.

The series was set to take place between Episode III and IV, and it was first announced at 2005's Celebration III by George Lucas. Here's how he described it to Total Film magazine (via Gizmodo) in 2008:

"It's kind of like Episode IV — it's funny, and there's action, but it's [a] lot more talky. It's more of what I would call a soap opera with a bunch of personal dramas in it. It's not really based on action-adventure films from the '30s — it's actually more based on film noir movies from the '40s!"

The show was going to have familiar characters like Palpatine, who would've been more of a "sympathetic figure". Ultimately, it never managed to come to life due to the cost of producing it.