By Brandon T. McClure (@btmcclure @fakenerdpodcast)
In 1988 Lucasfilm released a new fantasy epic directed by Ron Howard called Willow. The film starred Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer and followed their journey to protect a baby, named Elora Dannon, who was prophesied to save the world. Warwick Davis played the titular character of Willow, a Nelwyn who yearns to be a sorcerer. The movie was a moderate success but didn’t kickstart a new fantasy franchise. But discussions for a sequel TV series picked up in 2005 with the series going into official pre-production in 2019. Finally, Willow was released on Disney+ in 2022 only to be canceled a few months later.
Acting as a legacy sequel to the 1988 film, Willow sees the return of Warwick Davis as Willow Ufgood. He’s called upon when Queen Sorsha’s son is taken by an evil witch known as the Crone. The series introduces new characters to the franchise such as Boorman, Graydon, and Kit and reintroduces Elora Dannon as a young girl with no knowledge of who she was meant to be. During their quest, Willow has to train Elora to fight the Crone and learn the secrets of the new villains, The Order of the Wyrm.
Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) in Willow.
For a number of weeks after its release, Willow was one of the top 10 most streamed shows and its critic score on Rotten Tomatoes was a respectable 86%. The show received plenty of praise for its humor, action, and queer romance at the center. It’s not often that family fantasy shows center around a lesbian romance. It consisted of likable characters and respected the world of the movie in ways that allowed it to grow and expand. The final episode ended with a tease that this story would span three seasons, which proved that there was confidence and a plan. So it came as a blow when Deadline reported that Willow had been canceled by Disney+.
Willow isn’t the first show to get that axe from Disney+. With the streaming bubble looking like it’s about to burst, many streaming services are cutting down on the amount of shows they produce exclusively. Long gone are the days when streaming shows would grow an audiences, but now the days of content overload might be behind us. Shows like Big Shot and Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (another legacy sequel) were canceled shortly before this news about Willow dropped. But, according to showrunner Jonathan Kasden (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), hope is not lost.
Kasden went to Twitter after this news dropped to explain the circumstances surrounding Willow’s future. According to the showrunner, Disney and Lucasfilm are still interested in the show but season 2 wasn’t going to film in 2023. The decision was made to release the cast and crew from their contracts so that they may pursue other opportunities while the writing staff polishes the scripts for the next season. He compared the wait for season 2 to the 34-year wait between the movie and the show, which didn’t give the confidence he was likely hoping it would. If this was just a case of letting contracts laps, then no one told the actors. Throughout the day when the news of its cancelation dropped, the actors took to social media to console each other and fans about the disappointing news. If Kasden was truly confident that there would another season, perhaps he should have told his cast first.
Jade (Erin Kellyman) and Princess Tanthalos (Ruby Cruz) in Willow.
A rumor came out recently that Bob Iger, who was recently reinstated as head of Disney, mandated that Lucasfilm focus on developing Star Wars projects and not any others. What the general public at large may not be aware of, is that Lucasfilm has three original IP’s that belong to their company: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Willow. While Disney+ has become home to many successful Star Wars shows and a new Indiana Jones movie is being released this year, Lucasfilm has struggled when it comes to where they want to take Star Wars on the big screen. Every few months, a director and writer are hired to develop a new film only for them to leave months later. Perhaps the cancelation of Willow is a casualty of that. Should this rumored mandate be true, then Lucasfilm would only be allowed to make and produce Star Wars related films and shows, and their other IP would just go back on the shelf collecting dust. There’s no room for three seasons of Willow when there’s a Star Wars movie to be made.
There are a lot of potential reasons for why Willow could have been canceled. There’s also the hopeful possibility that it hasn’t been, and besides, plenty of shows have been saved from cancelation before. A show like Willow doesn’t come along every day. Its cancelation follows a concerning trend of sapphic-centered TV shows being canceled (this news dropped days after it was reported that A League of Their Own was “canceled”). But with a writers strike on the horizon and streaming services hemorrhaging money, Willow is just very likely to be just another casualty of the end of the golden age of streaming.