Earlier this week, reports broke that Willow—the streaming TV continuation of Ron Howard and George Lucas’ 1988 fantasy epic—had been canceled after a single season on the air at Disney+. Now, though, series showrunner Jon Kasdan has pushed back on those reports, asserting, basically, that in a world where Willow can get revived on technology that didn’t even exist when it first hit theaters, who can even say what “canceled” means anymore, anyway?
In a long letter posted on Twitter this week, Kasdan does concede the basic point that kicked off reports of Willow’s death: The release of the cast from their contracts, which typically signals that a show has no plans to move forward on production any time in the near future. Which is also the case with Willow: Acknowledging that “Due to forces much larger and more intricate than I would ever pretend to fully understand, production of streaming shows is slowing down across the entire industry,” Kasdan admitted that “Willow won’t resume filming in the next 12 months.”
But despite all that, Kasdan insists this is just a pause, and not a true cancellation, because what’s 12 months, anyway? “Three weeks ago,” he writes, “We got a third season of Party Down, 13 years after season two. Between season 2 and 3 of Atlanta? 4 years. Curb Your Enthusiasm seasons 8 and 9 had a hiatus of 6 years.” Which does ignore the much higher percentage of shows that go on “hiatus” and, uh, stay there, but Kasdan does suggest that he has at least some continuing support from Disney and Lucasfilm. (Who, to be fair, haven’t issued one of those “We were so happy to have worked with you” press releases that are typically the death knell for a TV show.) Kasdan also reportedly has a full bushel of scripts for Willow Volume II, which was promised (alongside Willow Volume III) in the opening moments of the streaming series.
