In May, during this year’s Star Wars Celebration, we finally got a look at the highly anticipated Disney+ prequel to Rogue One, Star Wars: Andor. While we already knew the series would take place five years before Rogue One, it has now been confirmed that the first season will span one year and the second will cover the following four.
Speaking to Empire, Andor showrunner and executive producer Tony Gilroy revealed the news and shared a few behind-the-scenes details as to how the show is coming together and how the shooting schedule "organically led to Season 2's different structure."
“The scale of the show is so huge,” Gilroy said. “Directors work in blocks of three episodes, so we did four blocks [in Season 1] of three episodes each. We looked and said, ‘Wow, it’d be really interesting if we come back, and we use each block to represent a year. We’ll move a year closer with each block’. From a narrative point of view, it’s really exciting to be able to work on something where you do a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then jump a year.”
Each season will span twelve episodes, and while the Rogue One movie is more about that big event at the end, Andor will delve deeper into the characters that make up the story, according to Diego Luna speaking to Empire. Luna is reprising his role as the show’s titular character Cassian Andor.
Star Wars: Andor was first announced in 2018 and will follow Andor, the thief-turned-Rebel spy, leading up to the events of Rogue One where the plans for the Death Star are stolen. The series could also feature some previously cut characters.
Star Wars: Andor debuts with its first two episodes on Disney+ on August 31, 2022. Be sure to check out the trailer and our breakdown of everything we saw in it.
Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.