Jon Favreau Teases Star Wars Exit After The Mandalorian and Grogu

Jon Favreau is taking Din Djarin and Grogu to theaters, and he is talking like this might be his mic drop. After three seasons on Disney+, Disney and Lucasfilm pivoted from a fourth season of The Mandalorian to a feature film, with Favreau directing. The Mandalorian and Grogu is positioned as Star Wars' big-screen return for the first time since 2019's The Rise of Skywalker.

'Culmination' sounds like a choice of words

Favreau has been steady on Star Wars for years, and he gave a telling answer about what this movie means to him:

'I have been working on Star Wars now for seven years, and to be able to step up to doing it as a film feels like a culmination of what I am working on.'

Culmination reads like an endpoint. If this is his exit ramp, he picked a big one.

Supersizing Mando for a theater crowd

Favreau says the jump from streaming to a theatrical event pushes everything higher: IMAX-friendly aspect ratios, sets built to fill that frame, visual effects leveled up, and a story sized for a packed auditorium. He wants the thing to feel like an occasion, not an episode.

'With Star Wars, we have to execute at that tech level. So the challenge becomes: Okay, we presented a cinematic experience on the small screen. We have to up our game now to the movie theater. That means taller aspect ratios for IMAX, building sets that take full advantage of that, making the visual effects of the quality and caliber that we have to notch everything up. And then the storytelling as well. That adventure has to fill up the screen and has to be something — at this moment in time, when so much is competing for attention — that you are going to stop what you are doing, and you are going to go to a movie theater, and you are not going to be able to pause it, and you are not going to be able to eat the food out of your refrigerator. You have to have such a good experience that you say, "This is worth my time. Let’s go again. I want to bring you. You should go see it."'

Translation: he is aiming for an event movie, not just a bigger episode with end credits.

How we got here (and how much Favreau did)

• 2017: Pitches The Mandalorian with Dave Filoni to Kathleen Kennedy.
• 2018: Voices Rio Durant in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
• Nov. 11, 2019: The Mandalorian premieres on Disney+.
• Across three seasons: Creates the series, writes 20 of its 24 episodes, and directs the season 2 premiere, Chapter 9: The Marshal.
• Creates and writes all seven episodes of The Book of Boba Fett.
• Executive producer on Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew.
• 2010–2012: Voices Pre Vizsla, the Mandalorian Death Watch leader.

What happens after The Mandalorian and Grogu

After seven years building out this corner of the galaxy, it would make sense if Favreau steps back from day-to-day writing and directing. Expect him to keep a hand on the tiller as a producer while this era plays out. He has a track record of staying involved in front of the camera even when he moves on behind it — think Happy Hogan in the MCU — so a continued presence in Star Wars voice work would track.

He is also busy elsewhere at Disney, directing a short series for Disney+ centered on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the studio's first animated headliner. So the man is not exactly going fishing.

The Mando-verse keeps moving

Even if Favreau treats the film as a finale for his run, the story threads he spun keep going. Ahsoka season 2 lands on Disney+ later this year, and Dave Filoni — now a co-president at Lucasfilm — is still set to direct a crossover movie that pulls together The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka.

So yes, The Mandalorian and Grogu could be Favreau's curtain call. Din and Grogu's saga, though, still has runway.