Disney+'s 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' series was spawned from axed Stephen Daldry movie

Back in 2017, it was announced that British director Stephen Daldry, maker of movies like Billy Elliot and Netflix hit The Crown, had signed up to make a standalone Obi-Wan Kenobi movie.

It came around the same time as the announcement of the Rogue One and Solo spin-off heading into production.

Then in 2018, it was revealed that Daldry's project would be a prequel to A New Hope, rather than an Obi-Wan origin story, and would focus on Ewan McGregor's character in exile on Tatooine as the Empire rises, and watching over the young Luke Skywalker from a distance.

Read more: Ewan McGregor teases Obi-Wan series plot

The plot would have involved the growing friction between the Sand People and the farmers of the arid desert planet.

But then it quietly slipped from the radar, with Daldry's exit never being officially announced.

Now, Disney+ has confirmed that there will now be an Obi-Wan Kenobi spin-off series, and it appears that writer Hossein Amini, who penned Drive and created BBC series McMafia, was on board with the movie plan at the same time as Daldry.

Speaking to Discussing Film about how he first became involved in the project, he said: “I was initially contacted by the original director for the film version, Stephen Daldry and chatted with him and loved him as a director and then with Lucasfilm, it was more of a conversation than a pitch, I am incredibly gracious about it. They didn’t make it feel like an audition.”

He added that he's been involved with the project for 'probably coming up to almost two years now', which would certainly overlap with Daldry's involvement.

McGregor, who last played Kenobi in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, recently gave us a taste of what the series would be like.

Read more: Early reactions to The Mandalorian

He told Men's Journal: “The Jedi Order was falling apart [at the end of Revenge of the Sith]. It will be interesting to take a character we know in a way and show him – Well, his arc will be quite interesting, I think, dealing with that the fact that all the Jedi were slaughtered with the end of Episode III.

“It’s quite something to get over.”

The series will join two other Star Wars universe spin-off on Disney+ - the streaming platform's flagship show from Jon Favreau The Mandalorian, which will debut tomorrow in the US (but not until March 2020 in the UK), and another based on Cassian Andor, hero of Rogue One.