Star Wars: Underworld — the most ambitious Star Wars project that never happened.
In the vast history of Star Wars, few canceled projects remain as intriguing as Star Wars: Underworld. The series, spearheaded by George Lucas and producer Rick McCallum in the late 2000s, was set to explore the criminal underbelly of Coruscant, offering a darker, grittier take on the galaxy far, far away. However, despite over 60 scripts being nearly finished, the project was scrapped after Disney bought the rights due to its astronomical budget.
In a new interview on The Young Indy Chronicles podcast, McCallum shed new light on the doomed project, revealing that the lowest budget he could get it down to for each episode due to the technology needed was ~$40M — a nearly impossible number for television at the time. It was supposed to be 100 episodes long, which would make the production budget $4B. Easily would’ve been the most expensive show ever. Lucasfilm even wanted John Williams to compose the music for all episodes.
“These were dark. They were sexy, they were violent, they were just absolutely wonderful. Wonderful, complicated … challenging. I mean, it would have blown up the whole Star Wars universe … And Disney definitely would’ve never offered to buy Star Wars from George. It’s one of the great disappointments of our life.”
Several years before Disney ultimately purchased the rights, HBO was the only company with the financial capability and prestige to produce the Star Wars tv project at this scale. A meeting was scheduled with then-CEO Chris Albrecht at Skywalker Ranch, but the night before it was set to take place, he was let go by HBO following a scandal.
The scandal ended up being that Albrecht had been arrested in Las Vegas that weekend for choking his girlfriend in a parking lot. HBO forced him to resign after. This wasn’t the first allegation against him — back in the 1990s, he reportedly choked a female employee in her office. HBO settled that case for $400K, while Albrecht attributed his actions to struggles with alcoholism.
Rick McCallum says they were going to potentially float a Star Wars movie project or another Indiana Jones film to HBO as a backup idea to help get the Underworld $40M TV pilot produced if they outright said no. You can listen to that all in the video below or check out the full podcast.
Star Wars 1313 — The Lost Tie-In Game
Beyond the TV series, Star Wars: Underworld was also directly linked to the canceled video game Star Wars 1313. Developed by LucasArts, 1313 was meant to explore similar themes, Boba Fett as he navigated the criminal depths of Coruscant’s Level 1313. A demo and footage of the game was showcased at E3 2012. However, once Underworld was shelved, the game soon followed.
The demo from E3 was eventually leaked:
Footage has leaked over the years of Star Wars: Underworld
Despite its cancellation, test footage from Star Wars: Underworld exists and we have embedded it below:
While The Mandalorian and Andor have since explored the darker, more grounded aspects of the Star Wars universe, Underworld was set to do it first—and possibly in a way unlike anything we’ve seen.
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Lucas has proven himself a liar over and over, and with his "Disney...offered to buy SW" (Lucas was actively shopping it, pitched it to Disney and the entire sequel trilogy was conceived to ensure the sale), McCallum doesn't seem any more trustworthy than his pal.