How the galaxy might have been had things played out differently. On stage at Florida Supercon 2023, The Clone Wars stars Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein and James Arnold Taylor discussed the much-loved animated series, revealing their surprise at the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney back in late 2012 and the effect that had on the future of the show.
“We were well into season 7 when the series was cancelled. We were under the assumption that we were going to make 8 seasons of the show,” Ashley Eckstein recalls.
“I had been told that we were going to go as long as George (Lucas) wanted to go,” Matt Lanter adds.
“Originally George said he wanted to make 300 episodes,” James Arnold Taylor says.
“I had heard we were going to keep doing it until George didn’t want to do it anymore. Which at that time sounded like it was going to be a while,” Lanter recalls
“Keep in mind, when Disney bought Star Wars, it was a shock to everyone,” Eckstein says. “Nobody knew. Apparently, there was only five people in the company in all of Lucasfilm that actually knew that Disney was buying Star Wars. It sent ripples through the galaxy, and it was devastating when the show was cancelled. It was never our plan.”
“The fans saved the show,” Taylor says. “We recorded in the same place we always had, which was wonderful. We had a great time. It was short lived, that was the only problem. It wasn’t a lot of episodes. But when we did it, things were great. We did these scenes, and Dave said we got it on the first take, but let’s do it a few more times. It’s so much fun having you guys in here again.”
“Creatively it felt the same for us. I’m sure there’s a lot of different things going on above our heads, but I think for us it was the same,” Lanter shared.
“When the show came out, we were supposed to have all these premieres and events,” Eckstein reveals. “They were going to take ‘Siege of Mandalore’ and screen it in movie theaters. It was such a bummer that it was cancelled. I think that would have been a little different with Disney behind it.”
“I’m so glad that Clone Wars was there for everyone during COVID. Leave it to our show to provide hope when it was needed most,” Eckstein says.
