Most Star Wars followers already understand how Cassian Andor’s story ends, however reaching that gut-wrenching second will, blessedly, take some time longer: A second season of the implausible prequel-to-a-prequel collection Andor is already in manufacturing. The Disney+ drama follows Diego Luna’s Cassian, an orphan-turned-thief-turned-resistance fighter as he’s slowly swayed to the facet of the Insurgent Alliance, the underground motion towards the oppressive Galactic Empire. Season 1 covers his reluctant radicalization; season 2 will lead as much as the occasions of the acclaimed movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Creator (and Rogue One co-writer) Tony Gilroy has already promised that season 2 would be the present’s final, but when season 1 is any indication, Andor will take advantage of its remaining episodes. Right here’s what we all know to this point.
When does Andor season 2 come out?
Collider first reported that Andor started taking pictures season 2 on Nov. 20, 2022, two days earlier than the season 1 finale dropped on Disney+. Filming will proceed by way of August 2023, with post-production lasting into 2024. The primary season took three years to movie and finalize, and although that point interval included pandemic delays, Gilroy doesn’t anticipate season 2 will arrive a lot sooner. He instructed Collider the earliest he’d count on a season 2 launch date would certainly be 2024 … until somebody at Disney tosses a wad of money into the fray.
“The one place you’ll be able to speed up the processes is in put up, and the one approach you’ll be able to speed up in put up is with cash, and cash is tight,” he added. “So, I don’t actually know, there must be some severe motivation subsequent Could or June or one thing. Somebody must say, ‘Wow, we actually want this, and we’re keen to pay X.’ Rogue One proved, in the event you throw cash at it, you are able to do put up actually, actually quick. It’s simply very, very, very costly.”
What number of episodes will season 2 embody?
Similar to season 1, season 2 will function 12 episodes. Run occasions have but to be finalized and introduced, but when these episodes observe the trail of their predecessors, they possible run between half-hour and an hour.
In a June 2023 interview with ELLE.com, Luna shared that these 12 episodes can be divided into three-episode blocks. “On this subsequent season, what we’re doing is blocks of three episodes and every block represents a 12 months,” he stated. “We embody that as a part of the format in a way more structured approach [than in season 1].”
When within the timeline will season 2 happen?
Like season 1, the remainder of Andor will happen within the days main as much as Rogue One, during which Andor and his allies steal the plans to the Demise Star. This makes Andor a prequel to Rogue One, itself a prequel to the unique Star Wars trilogy of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Again, and Return of the Jedi.
To get a bit extra technical for the die-hard followers on the market, the occasions of Andor season 1 cowl one 12 months: 5 BBY (Earlier than the Battle of Yavin, i.e. when Luke Skywalker destroys the Demise Star.) The subsequent chapter will take a one-year time bounce, touchdown us at roughly 3 BBY by the beginning of season 2. Then, as Luna shared above, yearly time jumps will proceed with every three-episode block.
Kyle Soller, who performs former ISB Deputy Inspector Syril Karn, instructed Esquire, “What’s wonderful about dropping again in for [season 2] is the time gaps which can be going to be instituted to take you up the complete 5 years earlier than coming into Rogue One on the finish. So there’s big quantities of progress that is occurring inside the world of Andor, but additionally in Syril’s world.”
Who can be within the solid?
Count on a lot of the solid to return—together with Luna as Andor, and Stellan Skarsgård because the Insurgent plotter Luthen Rael—in addition to a number of newcomers. Gilroy instructed Rolling Stone in November 2022, “I’m carrying ahead one thing like 30 characters. So what turns into attention-grabbing is now we will play the adverse area. While you bounce a 12 months, what occurred in between? You recognize the individuals, you realize what their trajectory was. It’s energizing. We can be beginning new characters, clearly, within the subsequent 700 pages. There can be all types of recent issues, and can be simply as granular as we ever have been.”
What is going to season 2 be about?
Cassian is not a reluctant revolutionary; the subsequent time we meet him, he’ll be all in on conflict. However what precisely that appears like stays to be seen. “The writing of this present, it retains altering, retains reworking, retains bringing new turns,” Luna instructed ELLE.com. “It’s stuffed with layers.”
Gilroy is equally coy with any particulars, aside from this: Count on a “very totally different” plot in season 2.
“The primary 12 months is absolutely about him turning into, and the final line of this tranche of 12 episodes will sum up the place we’ve been attempting to get to,” Gilroy instructed Rolling Stone. “And we come again a 12 months later. It’ll be very totally different. The subsequent 4 years [of story] are usually not about turning into a revolutionary.”
In a separate interview with Vulture, Gilroy gave further readability to the season 2 plot: “It is rather a lot about, How troublesome is it for the Insurgent Alliance to return along with all of the outliers and unique gangsters? Totally different agendas and betrayals? The strain of the subsequent 4 years as issues pull collectively? The impact of time on individuals?”
Will the Jedi seem in season 2?
It’s potential, although not going. Keep in mind, the Jedi are all however extinct at this level within the timeline, except a handful together with Ahsoka Tano; Grogu, a.ok.a Child Yoda; Obi-Wan Kenobi; and the younger Luke Skywalker. However all of them have their very own exhibits and movies. Andor has by no means promised a standard Star Wars expertise.
Gilroy even instructed Collider, “I do not assume [Cassian and his fellow neighbors on Ferrix] know in regards to the royal household. I don’t assume they pay a lot thoughts to that. I imply, what number of beings are in that massive galaxy? I believe the overwhelming majority of the entire creatures and beings and sentient issues which can be within the galaxy, I believe the data of the Jedi and the lightsaber is a fairly small quantity.”
Nonetheless, one of many issues Andor has achieved greatest is weave bits of well-established Star Wars lore into completely separate, equally highly effective stand-alone tales. The flash of a lightsaber isn’t out of the query.
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Tradition Author
Lauren Puckett-Pope is a workers tradition author at ELLE, the place she primarily covers movie, tv and books. She was beforehand an affiliate editor at ELLE.