Sam Witwer, speaking to the Pause for Thought podcast, thinks the Star Wars franchise needs to take more risks going forward if it’s going to adapt to the needs of a changing theatrical audience, plus he shared a few tidbits above the second season of Maul – Shadow Lord.
“You have to take creative risks. It’s like the Maul character – if you’re not going risks with the Maul character, do something really new with him, you should not be taking the character out… And I think it’s the same thing with Star Wars in general. And when it comes to risk… Certain things are gonna hit with certain audiences – everyone has their favorite. But without that spirit of experimentation, you don’t get anywhere….
At the end of the day, it is all about risk-taking, and I think as audience members – as a fan myself, I accept that if you are taking swings, that means that [you’re] not gonna connect with everything, [but you have to take risks].
Like Shadow Lord! We were doing some weird stuff, and hopefully, when you watch the show, it feels like breezy and fun… But when you’re making that, none of that is clear, because you’re not looking at the finished product [at the start] – but our spirit was to try something totally new, yet totally familiar at the same time. So I know how hard this is, I guess.”
He stated that while he could not divulge too many details for the second season of his Maul animated series, he did indicate that fans should expect a jump in how it is approached the second time around compared to the first.
“We’ve been working on Season 2 for quite some time. In the George Lucas mold, we end up – it’s kind of like a different show, a new show. In the same way that The Empire Strikes Back is much, much different than A New Hope. So, there is obviously threads from Season 1 because it’s the same characters but it takes place some time after Season 1. That’s about as far as I should probably go [in saying anything].”
Watch the interview in full here, and stream the first season of Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord on Disney+ now.
