Willow showrunner "begging" Lucasfilm execs for season 2

Image: Willow/Disney+

2022 has been a year of plenty for fantasy fans. One of the latest offerings has been Willow, a Disney+ starring Warwick Davis that follows up on the cult classic 1988 Lucasfilm movie. Willow is halfway through its first season and has had a solid run thus far. Yet for some reason, it's not making a big splash. The show currently holds an 85% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, but only a 26% audience score, which is quite a bit less than good. What gives?

As of this writing, it hasn't been announced whether a second season of Willow is in the cards, but the show's head writer Jonathan Kasdan is certainly hoping for it. Speaking to ComicBookMovie.com, Kasdan revealed that he's having as many conversations as he possibly can about Willow season 2 with the top brass at Lucasfilm.

"We’re certainly working at it and I’m begging Kathy [Kennedy] because working with these actors and this crew of filmmakers on this show has been the best experience," Kasdan said. "We still feel like there are a lot of stories and bigger places to visit."

(L-R): Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) and Jade (Erin Kellyman) in Lucasfilm's WILLOW exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Unlike many of the other legacy sequels hitting our screens of late, Willow comes from a pretty interesting place. The movie has a passionate fanbase, but it was never a massive hit like so many of Lucasfilm's other properties. When crafting the show for today's audiences, Kasdan had to keep in mind that not everyone would be a Willow superfan or even familiar with it, while also letting the longtime fans know he was building this thing from an authentic place of respect.

As a die-hard Willow fan myself and a kid who grew up on it, I was never worried that I wasn't going to come at it with anything but love and admiration and desire to squeeze in every possible reference and texture from the original movie that I could sustain for this sequel. I saw this very much as a continuation of that film, but one of its virtues, at least for me, is that Val [Kilmer] brought to it such originality and contemporary sound, that I thought it was also incumbent on us to do that in ‘22. The way we did that was with a cast that each brought a different element to the table and play off Warwick in different and really fun and exciting ways. What's great is that every one of them got to have real scenes with him and really partner with this character who grounds the whole series in reality.

The cast of Willow is absolutely one of its highlights. The series follows a mismatched band of adventurers on a rescue mission, each with their own personal baggage and quirks. From the hilarious warrior Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel) to the rogueish princess Kit (Ruby Cruz) to the no-nonsense sorcerer Willow himself, the characters are absolutely what make the show so far. Said Kasden:

Some of the casting was very easy and almost happened without much work at all. Erin Kellyman [Jade] and I had been on the set of Solo together. I knew her work and the physicality and soulfulness she brought to everything she did. There was a guarantee in my mind that it was going to be part of this equation. When Ellie Bamber came in, I thought, ‘This is Elora Danan, the grown-up version of this baby that I’d seen in the movie.’ There was no one else for that.

With Tony Revolori [Graydon], I was a huge fan of his work long before I ever got to meet him, and the humour and reactive humour, specifically, that he brings to The Grand Budapest Hotel is the kind of thing you want on any adventure story like this. People like Amar Chadha-Patel, a total gift, who just won it in the room, completely. I had never heard of him before. He was a skinny, rail-thin guy who said, ‘Jon, I’m going to put on sixty pounds of muscle,’ to which I said, ‘Bullshit!’ He went and did it and it's a remarkable transformation and is now the only person who could have ever been Boorman.

It's been a remarkable journey of getting to find all these actors and bring them together.

Willow premieres new episodes on Wednesdays. We review each one as it airs, should you need a companion for your journey:

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