How would you like to spend three months with Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor? Later this year, you’ll get that chance. A new interview confirms that his upcoming Star Wars show, Andor, is 12 episodes long. That’s double the length of this week’s Obi-Wan Kenobi show, five episodes longer than The Book of Boba Fett, and four episodes longer than each season of The Mandalorian. (Animated series The Bad Batch was 16 episodes, so that’s why we’re specifying “live-action.”)
And show runner Tony Gilroy isn’t stopping at 12, as work on a season two is already underway. “It is a second season, but it’s really, for me, the second half of the novel,” Gilroy said to Vanity Fair. “This first season is about him becoming a revolutionary, and the second 12 episodes take him into Rogue One.” (Which means, as previously reported, K-2SO is not in the first season.)
Andor begins five years before the events of Rogue One following the eventual Rebel spy on a literary and psychological journey toward that role. It’ll also flashback to his childhood, all with the aim to build out a character who made some decisions in Rogue One that maybe didn’t make a lot of sense immediately. “You know he’s been fighting since he was a child, right? He says that. You know he’s been a guerrilla fighter. You certainly know he’s been an assassin. He kills an ally in the very first scene,” Gilroy said. “That was a big gulp on Rogue One, to see who would swallow that. He’s morally complicated in a really dark way.”
The article also reveals that the 12-episode first season will have multiple storylines happening at the same time. Two of the biggest focus on Cassian, of course, and the other on Mon Mothma, played by Genevieve O’Reilly.
“I have the sheet in front of me. I have 211 speaking parts in this show. There’s probably 75 people in there who really matter, and there’s at least a dozen seriously important characters that we’ll be carrying forward to the second [season,]” Gilroy said. “It is a huge, orchestral, Dickensian ensemble cast, with Diego at the middle of it, and Genevieve at the middle of another part of it. They intersect. I’m not going to get into how they intersect. They do have an intersection — but they do not meet. They will not meet until the second half.”
Gilroy also teased his excitement about the role Mon Mothma, first seen at the leader of the Rebellion at the end of Return of the Jedi, has early in the season. “I bet that when episode 104 plays, when Mon Mothma finishes the episode, that there’ll be people tweeting about Mon Mothma,” he said.
Head over to Vanity Fair for more on the upcoming Star Wars show including some semi-spoilery details on the first episode or two. Andor does not yet have an exact release date but it’s likely to be announced later this week at Star Wars Celebration.
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.