Thank God Star Wars' The Mandalorian Replacement Didn't Happen

Published Nov 8, 2026, 9:00 AM EST Sean is a senior writer for ScreenRant and has been writing about new TV releases since December 2023. He has received multiple advance screenings of popular shows and ideated his own coverage read by hundreds of thousands of readers. Sean is a self-published author of a Western novel. Sean has also written award-winning opinion pieces related to local politics while getting his Bachelor's degree in journalism. Nearly a decade after it was canceled, it was clearly a blessing that the Star Wars movie that was meant to replace The Mandalorian never got made. For nearly seven years now, The Mandalorian has been the flagship Star Wars show on Disney+. It's by far the franchise's most popular series, even with the box office failure of The Mandalorian and Grogu, and it even spawned its own mini-franchise, the Mandoverse. Though The Mandalorian has become a powerhouse of Star Wars at large, Disney and Lucasfilm didn't originally think it was going to be such a huge success. Beyond the sequel trilogy of Star Wars movies, Disney and Lucasfilm didn't really know what to do with the franchise. After two spinoff films, Rogue One and Solo, there still wasn't a viable alternative to yet another trilogy. If things had gone just a little bit differently, The Mandalorian may not have happened. One of the many previously announced and later canceled Star Wars movies may have taken its place. If that had happened, Star Wars as a whole would have been significantly worse off. For possibly the first time, The Mandalorian has proven that it was actually for the best that Disney and Lucasfilm failed to finish a project they announced. The Mandalorian Couldn't Have Happened If Boba Fett's Solo Movie Went Ahead MovieStillsDB Years before The Mandalorian premiered in 2019, Disney and Lucasfilm were planning on making a standalone Star Wars movie based on Boba Fett. The now-canceled Boba Fett movie was announced in 2014 and was originally supposed to be a spinoff film akin to Rogue One. Over the years, the Boba Fett movie lost its director, got shuffled around behind the scenes while Solo: A Star Wars Story was being made, and ultimately got canceled in 2018. The cancelation of the Boba Fett movie was disappointing at the time. Boba Fett has long been a fan-favorite character, and the movie was a chance to finally use him to his fullest potential decades after The Empire Strikes Back. However, it's now clear that canceling the Boba Fett movie was the best decision Disney and Lucasfilm could have made, as it made The Mandalorian possible. Put simply, The Mandalorian never would have been created if the Boba Fett film hadn't been axed. Both of the possible outcomes of the Boba Fett movie being released would have led to Din Djarin not being created. If it was a hit, Star Wars would have doubled down on Fett, meaning there was no need for Djarin. As the failure of The Book of Boba Fett proved, there's really only room enough in Star Wars for one helmeted hero at a time. If it was a flop, Star Wars would have moved away from Mandalorians entirely to focus on a different part of the franchise. There's no way around it: if the Boba Fett movie happened, The Mandalorian wouldn't have. The Mandalorian Rejuvenated The Star Wars Franchise Credit: MovieStillsDB The cancelation of the Boba Fett movie ended up being a massive blessing in disguise. That's because the creation of The Mandalorian was absolutely crucial for Star Wars, and not just because it's a great show. The Mandalorian came at exactly the time Star Wars needed it most, and it ended up rejuvenating the franchise and ushering in an era of live-action shows on Disney+. The Rise of Skywalker premiered just a month after The Mandalorian started, and it marked a significant low point for the franchise. The sequel trilogy was already divisive and the subject of the so-called culture war, especially after The Last Jedi divided the fan base into those who loved and those who hated it. Solo: A Star Wars Story had also become the franchise's first box office bomb in 2018. The Rise of Skywalker then unified those fans, but it mostly unified them in a shared hatred of the trilogy's final chapter. Star Wars was in a spiral at the end of 2019, and it may have only gotten worse if The Mandalorian hadn't been there to absorb some of the blow. For the first time since Disney purchased Star Wars, The Mandalorian managed to be nearly universally acclaimed by both camps of the culture wars. It was a resounding hit that drew in old and new fans of the franchise and of Baby Yoda. It also proved the viability of live-action Star Wars shows, which Disney would focus on for the next six years. The Mandalorian certainly didn't solve all of Disney and Lucasfilm's problems, but it was more than enough to keep Star Wars healthy for nearly a decade. Instead of taking a hiatus to lick its wounds after two underwhelming movies back to back, Star Wars was huge from 2020 to 2025. The franchise produced nearly a dozen live-action and animated shows in that time. While the fanbase was largely still divided, The Mandalorian gave viewers something to come together on. A Boba Fett Solo Movie Wouldn't Have Had The Same Impact As The Mandalorian MovieStillsDB While it is possible that Boba Fett's solo movie could have been a rejuvenating force for Star Wars, there's almost no chance it would have had the same impact as The Mandalorian. The main reason for that is because Boba Fett is a legacy character from the original trilogy, while Din Djarin was a wholly new creation. As popular as Boba Fett was back in the 2010s, he also carried some baggage. The Mandalorian was a hit precisely because it was so broadly accessible. You didn't need to watch a minute of Star Wars to understand the show. As long as you had a vague understanding of the Force, Yoda, and the Empire, you were all set. Viewers weren't even required to know what a Mandalorian is, as Din Djarin was part of a secretive and traditionalist sect. Anyone and everyone could tune in to see Baby Yoda and a space cowboy go on adventures together. Boba Fett, on the other hand, would have been immediately polarizing. Whether the solo movie required extensive knowledge of the franchise or not, it would be perceived by the public as a very Star Wars-y story. That alone would make it very hard for the movie to find a wide audience, especially with the public perception of the franchise being as bad as it was in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker. Even if the Boba Fett movie was the best Star Wars movie ever made, Disney and Lucasfilm would have had a hard time getting people to see it. The Mandalorian also had much more room for growth than Boba Fett did. Din was a new character that could go in any direction, he was part of a new, mysterious, and intriguing sect of Mandalorians that wasn't beholden to established lore, and he was in a standalone story. Boba Fett, on the other hand, had a set personality, a set backstory, and very little intrigue left. There's simply no way Boba Fett's movie would have been as important to Star Wars as The Mandalorian was. The Mandalorian's Recent Struggles Don't Detract From Its Overall Impact Despite its storied past, it's no secret that The Mandalorian has been struggling in recent years. The Mandalorian season 3 is universally viewed as the worst installment in the show. There's still no word on The Mandalorian season 4 after three years and running, and The Mandalorian and Grogu lost tens of millions of dollars at the box office. Star Wars itself also seems to be leaving Din and Grogu behind to shift its attention back to the sequel era. Upcoming Star Wars Movies & Shows Title Release Date Ahsoka Season 2 January 20, 2027 Star Wars: Starfighter May 28, 2027 Maul - Shadow Lord Season 2 TBA New Jedi Order TBA Simon Kinberg's Trilogy TBA Dawn of the Jedi TBA Star Wars: Visions Season 4 TBA The struggles The Mandalorian has endured since 2023 obviously aren't great, but they also don't detract from the show's overall impact on Star Wars at large. As previously mentioned, Star Wars would be a fraction of the franchise it currently is without this show. Nearly a dozen Star Wars shows wouldn't have been made, the fanbase would be even more divided than it already is, and Disney and Lucasfilm would likely still be trying to pivot away from the sequel trilogy. The Mandalorian is, by a wide margin, the single most important Star Wars show ever made. Nothing can take away the magic of those first two seasons or the impact they had on the franchise at large. That's why it was for the best that the Boba Fett solo movie never got made. Without it, The Mandalorian got its chance to change Star Wars forever and for the better. Release Date 2019 - 2023-00-00 Network Disney+ Showrunner Jon Favreau Cast Din Djarin / The Mandalorian Katee Sackhoff Bo-Katan Kryze Directors Rick Famuyiwa, Bryce Dallas Howard, Dave Filoni, Carl Weathers, Peyton Reed, Deborah Chow, Jon Favreau, Peter Ramsey, Robert Rodriguez, Taika Waititi, Lee Isaac Chung Writers Jon Favreau Franchise(s) Star Wars Creator(s) Jon Favreau