While Andor Season 1 took place over the course of one year in Cassian Andor’s life, Season 2, which premieres next month on the 2025 TV schedule, will cover the remaining four years that lead to his appearance in Rogue One. So why not have this Star Wars series run for three additional seasons and give fans nearly half a decade more worth of entertainment to stream with their Disney+ subscription? Well, that was originally what was going to happen, but according to Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy, two specific issues required the shift in plans.
Gilroy discussed this subject as part of the Andor spread in the latest issue of SFX Magazine. The showrunner, who previously wrote additional scenes for Rogue One following the conclusion of principal photography and worked with director Gareth Edwards on the reshoots, intended for each season of Andor to cover one year in the life of Diego Luna’s character as a member of the Rebel Alliance. However, that went out the window due to the unbeatable enemy of all, time. It was a move “born out of desperation,” with Gilroy explaining:
We were halfway through shooting season one, coming through Covid, and the monumental size of the show, the effort and everything else was just dawning on us. We realised that I didn’t have enough calories to do it, and Diego’s face couldn’t take the timing, because it just takes too long to make it. We were saved by Disney saying, ‘Okay, if you guys can figure out a way to do it, we’re into it.’
When Andor Season 2 premieres on April 22, it will have been a little over two and a half years since Season 1 started airing. Granted, the writers and actors strikes in 2023 played into the long gap, but even ignoring them, it’s an intensive feat putting together Star Wars TV shows. One might argue it’s even more so than the Star Wars movies considering there’s more than just two hours of content being written, filmed, edited, etc. Andor Season 1 began rolling cameras at the end of November 2020 and didn’t finish until September 2021.
So not only did Tony Gilroy realize that he didn’t have it in him to make three more seasons of Andor, there was also the matter of that being too much time for Diego Luna’s face. Remember, the actor shot Rogue One in 2015 and the movie was released at the end of 2016. If too much time passed working on Andor, then suddenly his younger version of Cassian Andor would end up looking older than he did in his last chronological appearance.
So instead, it was decided to cover the remaining four years of Cassian’s life across three episodes each of Andor. Not only that, each trio of episodes will be released weekly, meaning Andor will be done by May 13. Tony Gilroy shared his thoughts on this Disney+ rollout thusly:
It’s a fascinating experiment and I don’t know if anyone’s ever done it before. We’re going to jump a year between each block, and we’re going to use that negative space in a really interesting way, coming back for three days at a time, so it’s like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. The challenge is, how do you come back [to start each chapter]? We wanted to have it be as elegant and seamless as possible, and just hit the ground running. There was a lot of experimentation to make sure that would work.
While it’s regrettable that Tony Gilroy’s original five-season vision for Andor didn’t work out, I take comfort knowing that as Diego Luna pointed out, that “in a way, we did four movies.” Sure, we won’t be exploring his years as a Rebel as in-depth as what was done in Season 1, but it’s not an insignificant chunk of time either. Maybe if the pandemic and the aforementioned strikes hadn’t happened, those five seasons could have happened, but I’m just grateful that the show will have a definitive ending planned ahead of time. The same can’t be said for The Acolyte.
There’s only a few weeks left to go until Andor Season 2 begins, so continue visiting CinemaBlend for more updates on what it’ll deliver. You can also count on us covering the latest and greatest news about the other upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows.
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