Welcome to the Barside Buzz, where we give you the latest hot rumors from the film industry. This installment: The Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series has been quite the newsworthy bastard as of late. You all remember just a few weeks back that it was revealed they’d have to delay production. On our end, we got word that production prep at Pinewood Studios was effectively canceled. For the record, that’s the word that was used to those on-the-ground workers at the time — hence the confusion.

Since then, many of those workers have signed on to other high-profile projects, including the upcoming Cassian Andor Disney+ series. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today. Let’s circle back to Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan’s Ambitious Scope

Last week, I was told by a source that Lucasfilm was thinking big with the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. More specifically, that the budget for each of the eight episodes would be around $25 million or so. Needless to say, that’s a big-ass chunk of change they’re dealing with there. While a second source hasn’t doubled down on that specific figure, they do seem to agree that Lucasfilm is pulling out all the stops for the Obi-Wan series.

“They are swinging for the fences with this show!” the second source told us. They were apparently told that the production will rival the last season of Game of Thrones. 

RELATED – The Obi-Wan Kenobi Series Will Likely Have A HUGE Budget: LRM Rumor

Well, if the budget is anywhere near what my initial source said, I could see this even going above and beyond what Game of Thrones had to offer.  As I said in my previous Obi-Wan rumor piece (linked above), Game of Thrones’ final season had a budget of around $90 million for six feature-length episodes. With Obi-Wan, it sounds as though they’ll have a greater budget, and more than likely, a shorter runtime.

Obi-Wan’s Runtime

And speaking of runtime…how long will it be? Sadly, we don’t know. None of our sources have a specific grip on the length of each episode, but we are fairly confident they won’t be feature-length. However, we have solid ground to stand on in saying that the episodes will likely run longer than The Mandalorian for one big reason: the Obi-Wan Kenobi series will only run for one season.

That’s right. It’ll be a glorious one-and-done tale, which makes sense, given that the story started off as a feature film before making the transition to Disney+. It’s also the most logical direction to go with this show and one I think most fans will be on board with. That being said, it also means they have only one shot to get this right, so you can understand Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy pushing things off to make sure they don’t screw it up.

Familiar Faces

Last week, it was reported that George Lucas would be returning for the Cassian Andor series as writer and executive producer. While we couldn’t corroborate this story fully, it did sound like Lucas was lurking around the different series, with one of our sources stating that Obi-Wan could have Lucas as an executive producer.

Now, it doesn’t look like that’ll be the case…probably. What is being said is that there will likely be “familiar faces” from the Star Wars franchise involved with production. What they mean by “familiar faces” though is one big question mark. We already know that The Mandalorian’s Deborah Chow will serve as director, but we don’t know if that would count as a familiar face. Could this mean there could be others from the first six Star Wars movies coming on board, or perhaps more folks from the world of animation? It’s hard to say.

And speaking of familiar faces, Hayden Christensen is a name that also popped up — but that bit is pure speculation. But it is the name that seems to be hopping around offices, nonetheless. I have no idea how they’d do it, considering Anakin is Darth Vader at this point, but that’s another reason you need to file that under speculation.

Adios

Anyway, that’s just some of the scuttlebutt we’ve been hearing from our sources regarding the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. As with all rumors, be sure to take them all with a grain of salt. While they are from trusted sources, the world of film and TV production is an ever-changing place, and things can change at the drop of a hat.

What do you think of all these rumors? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: LRM Exclusive