Pinch of Salt: Is The Mandalorian & Grogu Gearing Up for Pre-Production?

A  few days ago, Lucasfilm officially announced that The Mandalorian & Grogu, a new film from director Jon Favreau, was to begin production in 2024. But a lot of specifics are missing, and all things considered, that's still a pretty large time window. This should be taken with a giant asterisk, but ScreenRant recently spotted two social media posts from people attached to the Disney Plus show that could hint at behind-the-scenes movements.



The first and perhaps least notable is Simon Kassianides, who plays Axe Woves in The Mandalorian, and who posted on Instagram a selfie in costume the day after the announcement of the movie (see below). In principle, this could mean anything, from playing around with it at home to sharing his excitement about the film (which he did not mention); but it could also be some sort of in-character table read or even a new costume fitting.



Our suspicions, like ScreenRant's, were raised even further when we noticed that Maria Sandoval, who worked in the Makeup Department of the first two seasons of The Mandalorian (and the season 3 premiere) as well as The Book of Boba Fett, posted a picture of her luggage, teasing in the caption 'All ready to go……. Where do you think I am off to this time? hint: there WILL be sand!)' Sandoval also replied to Kassianides' post saying 'And he's SO COOL'. However, in the comments of her post, as spotted by ScreenRant, she liked a reply that identified the place as Hawaii, which The Mandalorian does not typically use as a filming location.



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So, two seemingly innocent social media posts that combined are enough to at least raise our eyebrows. Think that neither of these people will necessarily be involved in the new season -- although Axe Woves is probably going to be there, considering where things wrapped up in season 3. But even assuming all of this is hinting at something, it doesn't mean that they are gearing up for shooting soon. However, given the timing of the announcement and the fact that Pedro Pascal could have an opening in his schedule during the summer (whether or not he'll be needed, we don't know, but he might make himself available to at least go say hi), it seems like a spring-summer shoot could be in the cards, which means that starting pre-production around February is not too far-fetched. Again, pinch of salt.



Another question that has been circulating on social media is what will be shooting next, The Mandalorian & Grogu, or the fourth season of the TV series -- or perhaps even both simultaneously. We have a few reasons to believe that the series is at least going to be put on hold for now, even despite Deadline's throwaway line about the fourth season still being in development at Lucasfilm.



For starters, that could have been just based on last year's reports that it was ready to go into production in October and not have been updated recently. Then, there's The Hollywood Reporter casting doubt on whether the fourth season will even happen, in a newsletter published a few days after the announcement. There's also the old 'applying logic' to the situation: if season 4 was not only in the works, but ready to shoot this year, that bit of information would have made its way into the StarWars.com announcement, which did find space to include the fact that Ahsoka season 2 is in development, and reminded us of all three Star Wars films that remain in the oven at Lucasfilm.







Then, there's the fact that when the rumor popped up in early December about this film, it was painted as 'a retooled Mandalorian season 4.' The specifics of why this movie is happening are still unknown (even if we here have our own theories), but many of the reasons why fall apart if we consider that it will be a companion piece to a season of TV (stuff like the criticism of season 3 of feeling unfocused and filled with unnecessary plotlines -- though a counter-argument would be that audiences did not care for it, as the show still ranked at the streaming top of 2023). Last but not least, it just seems like the effort to put together a film and a TV series back-to-back may be too much for a crew that seemed to have exhausted their resources during the few months Skeleton Crew and Ahsoka were filming on the same lot, especially as Dave Filoni will be focused on writing Ahsoka season 2.



No release date has been set for The Mandalorian & Grogu. Lucasfilm has unassigned slots in the 2026 calendar, on May 22 and December 18.



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