According to Variety the highly anticipated ‘Willow‘ series has been given the go ahead to move on. Rod Howard directed the original film and he is returning to executive produce the new series with Willow actor Warwick Davis.

Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) has been chosen to head up the new series. Jonathan Kasdan (Solo) and Wendy Mericle (Arrow) will be the showrunners on the series. Kasdan was also writing the pilot episode.  Bob Dolman, who wrote the original movie, will be a consulting producer as well.

The new series will introduce all new characters, and is supposed to take place after the events of the original Willow film. Hopefully they can make the transition work. With Dolman involved and Ron Howard in there too, they may be able to bridge that gap.

Kathleen Kennedy is involved as another Executive Producer and that worries me. Somehow she lost her 80’s vibes along the way. Considering how many pop culture classics she worked on, I’m honestly surprised that she can’t stick these landings.

Ron Howard had this to say about the upcoming project:

“It’s creatively exciting to not only revisit the world and characters first conceived by George Lucas, Bob Dolman and myself but to see it take flight in such fresh, fun and cinematic ways through the imagination of Jon Kasdan and Team Willow. This isn’t a nostalgic throw-back, it’s a creative lean-forward and it’s a blast to be a part of it all.”

The “isn’t a nostalgic throw-back” part is what has me worried. As of late Hollywood has been trying to use iconic intellectual properties from the 1980’s to boost up interest, and they usually end up missing the mark in both nostalgia and the “creative lean-forward.”

Maybe they can actually pull it off and I’m rooting for them to succeed. I do not want to see more 1980’s classics destroyed.

I believe they want to launch in 2021. So we will have to see how this goes.

What do you think? Comment and let us know!

Source: Variety