Warning: This article contains full spoilers for The Mandalorian and Grogu!
The Mandalorian and Grogu has landed in theaters, finally ending a seven-year drought of new Star Wars movies. This film serves as the latest expansion of the ever-growing Mando-verse, which includes The Mandalorian and other Disney+ series like Ahsoka, The Book of Boba Fett, and Skeleton Crew.
That said, the future of the Mando-verse is looking surprisingly murky. Where does the story go from here? Will there be a Season 4 of The Mandalorian? Will Dave Filoni’s Mando-verse crossover movie still happen? Are we ever going to see Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett again? Let’s explore what we know about this corner of the Star Wars franchise.
Does The Mandalorian and Grogu Have a Post-Credits Scene?
First things first, we might as well address the all-important question – does the latest Star Wars movie have a mid or post-credits scene? No, it doesn’t.
That’s hardly surprising, given that no other Star Wars movie has gone that route. Even when these films directly tease other projects (like with the Darth Maul cameo in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story), that material is presented as part of the actual film and not a separate scene. Once the credits start rolling in The Mandalorian and Grogu, you’re free to leave.
How The Mandalorian and Grogu Sets Up Future Star Wars Stories
As mentioned, The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first new Star Wars movie to hit theaters since 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. It also happens to be the first Star Wars movie to be released since The Mandalorian co-creator Dave Filoni was elevated to the top position at Lucasfilm. That all being said, this project doesn’t necessarily give us a great indication of where the franchise is headed from here. The Mandalorian and Grogu is not exactly a plot-driven film, and its impact on the wider Mando-verse is surprisingly minimal.
Basically, after Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) comes into conflict with the Hutt cartel and Imperial warlord Janu Coin (Jonny Coyne), the film ends with the New Republic dealing a swift, devastating blow to the Hutts and Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) throwing in his lot with the good guys. Din and Grogu are left in pretty much the exact same place they started the film. They aren’t agents of the New Republic, per se, but they’re happy to work with them to bring down the scattered remnants of the Empire, and be paid handsomely for their trouble.
As far as Din and his precocious son are concerned, the only thing that’s changed is that they have a new version of the Razor Crest, payment from the Republic for services rendered. At this point, every setback Din suffered in Season 2 of the series has been undone.
The film certainly leaves the door open for more Mando adventures, even if it doesn’t actually do much to set the stage for said adventures. Din is still a bounty hunter making his way through the galaxy and protecting a child whom the Empire would desperately like to get back into its clutches. Season 4 of The Mandalorian is certainly possible. But will it actually happen?
Will The Mandalorian Season 4 Ever Happen?
For a series that was once heralded as the future of the Star Wars franchise, The Mandalorian’s prospects have certainly dimmed over the years. Reactions to Season 3 were somewhat mixed, to say nothing of the response to The Book of Boba Fett (which was basically The Mandalorian Season 2.5 in the end). At one point, we would have thought for sure that Lucasfilm would move forward with a fourth season. Now, we’re not so sure.
There were plans in place at one point for The Mandalorian Season 4. Director Jon Favreau revealed that a series of scripts had been commissioned for Season 4. Those scripts were tied closely into the events of Star Wars: Ahsoka and the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen). However, at some point, Lucasfilm’s priorities for the franchise shifted from streaming to theatrical, and Favreau started from scratch on a more standalone, accessible storyline.
“You can’t just take those scripts and turn them into a movie,” Favreau told SFX Magazine. “There were a lot of characters, it assumed you’d watched the whole show, and it was teeing up what was happening moving into [the second season of] Ahsoka. It was about Grand Admiral Thrawn and following the larger storyline [of this era of the Star Wars timeline].
Again, nothing is stopping Lucasfilm from pivoting back to streaming and moving forward with The Mandalorian Season 4. But from the outside, there’s been no obvious movement on that front. It doesn’t help that those existing Season 4 scripts are probably unusable at this point. The series was meant to intertwine with Ahsoka, but now Ahsoka Season 2 is on the horizon. It’s too late to be setting up a show we already know is coming in early 2027 (more on Ahsoka Season 2 in a bit).
Once again, Favreau and Filoni would have to go back to the drawing board for Season 4. Would the series still deal with Thrawn’s return, or would it move in a different direction?
The real question, though, is whether there’s even a desire for another season at this point. The Mandalorian and Grogu is tracking fairly poorly, with the film projected to possibly open lower than even Solo: A Star Wars Story. Disney may not be eager to bankroll another expensive season of the series if the fan interest in all things Mando has waned that much. That’s especially true now, when Disney seems intent on cutting costs and scaling back its Disney+ output on both the Marvel and Star Wars fronts.
Frankly, we wouldn’t hold our breath for The Mandalorian Season 4 at this point. We have even less hope for a second season of The Book of Boba Fett. Lucasfilm may instead be looking ahead at new opportunities offered by projects like 2027’s Star Wars: Starfighter.
What to Expect From Ahsoka Season 2
The Mandalorian Season 4 certainly isn’t happening in its original form, if at all. But fans can look forward to another season of Ahsoka, albeit one that’s arriving more than three years after the first. Ahsoka Season 2 has been confirmed for an early 2027 release, making it the next Mando-verse project in the pipeline.
Season 2 will deal with the significant fallout of the first. If you’ve forgotten what unfolded way back in the distant era of 2023, Season 1 ends with Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and her late-bloomer of an apprentice, Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), being stranded in another galaxy on the Force-tinged world of Peridea. They, along with rogue Jedi Baylan Skoll (Rory McCann taking over for the late Ray Stevenson) and Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), will work to unlock the secrets of Peridea, even as Grand Admiral Thrawn returns to his home galaxy and rallies the scattered remnants of the Empire.
Thrawn’s return is the plot point with the most obvious significance to the wider Mando-verse. The Mandalorian has shown the lousy state the Empire is in at this point in the Star Wars timeline (roughly five years after the events of Return of the Jedi), but Thrawn has the potential to change the equation and put the fledgling New Republic on the ropes again. It doesn’t help that only Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) is there to sound the alarm about Thrawn’s return.
We don’t necessarily expect the Thrawn plotline to be resolved in Ahsoka Season 2. This is a development with major implications for the wider Mando-verse lineup. The issue is that there aren’t many confirmed Mando-verse projects after this. As we’ve covered, it’s unclear whether The Mandalorian Season 4 will ever happen. Follow-ups to The Book of Boba Fett and Skeleton Crew seem even less likely. And despite Gina Carano’s recent comments, we’re not expecting Lucasfilm to suddenly pull the Cara Dune-centric Rangers of the New Republic out of mothballs. That leaves just one future project set in the Mando-verse era.
Is Dave Filoni’s Movie Still Happening?
Back during Star Wars Celebration 2023, then-Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced several new Star Wars movies, one of which was to be directed by The Mandalorian co-creator (and now one of Kennedy’s successors) Dave Filoni. Filoni’s movie was teased as the culmination of the entire Mando-verse saga, one that will bring together characters and conflicts from The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka.
Our assumption is that Filoni’s film is heavily inspired by (if not outright based on) the 1991 novel Star Wars: Heir to the Empire. That book, which is now part of the Star Wars Legends timeline, first introduced Star Wars fans to Grand Admiral Thrawn. Set five years after Return of the Jedi, Heir to the Empire and its two sequels explore a massive conflict wherein Thrawn unifies the Imperial Remnant and nearly succeeds in destroying the New Republic using lost Clone Wars-era tech and the power of a crazed Jedi Master named Joruus C’baoth.
The Mandalorian and Ahsoka certainly seem to be setting up a similar conflict with Thrawn. Some details may change (for one thing, Han and Leia’s twin children Jacen and Jaina don’t exist in the Disney timeline), but this movie may well follow the broad strokes of the book. We would expect Mikkelsen’s character to serve as the main villain of the Filoni movie, one whose actions force heroes like Din Djarin, Boba Fett, Ahsoka Tano, the classic Star Wars Rebels gang, and maybe even Luke Skywalker to band together.
On paper, Filoni’s Star Wars movie sounds great. But there’s the eternal question of whether it’s ever going to leave the paper stage and become reality. That’s a hurdle a surprising number of Star Wars movies have failed to cross in recent years. Everything from Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy to Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron movie to Kevin Feige’s movie has been announced and quietly canceled a few years later. One need only review our Upcoming Star Wars Movies list to be reminded of just how vast the Star Wars movie graveyard has become over the years.
Is Filoni’s movie doomed to suffer a similar fate? It’s certainly not the most encouraging sign that we’ve heard almost nothing about the film in the three years since it was announced, even as Lucasfilm has moved full speed ahead on projects like The Mandalorian and Grogu and Starfighter. And now that Filoni is in charge of Lucasfilm, there’s the question of whether he even still has the time to commit to directing a full-fledged theatrical movie.
Ultimately, we suspect the Filoni movie will still be released in some form. Even if Lucasfilm has been guilty of leaving fans hanging with some Star Wars plot threads (the aforementioned Darth Maul cameo in Solo, the cancellation of The Acolyte), we can’t imagine they’re not going to give us a conclusion to the Mando-verse saga. They spent too many years building up this overarching storyline to just end things with The Mandalorian and Grogu and Ahsoka Season 2.
But will that project still take the shape of a theatrical film directed by Filoni? Maybe not. We could easily see Filoni taking on more of a producer role and allowing someone else to step into the director’s chair. We also wonder if the likely lackluster box office performance of The Mandalorian and Grogu will cause Disney to rethink the theatrical approach. Perhaps they’ll pivot back to streaming and release an Heir to the Empire series instead. Maybe it’ll be a single, feature-length special on Disney+. The Mando-verse will probably get the wrap-up storyline fans have been waiting for, one that’s directly set up by the ending of Ahsoka Season 2. It may just take a different form than originally promised.
What form do you think the Mando-verse conclusion will take? Vote in our poll and let us know what you think in the comments below.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
