Sam Taylor-Johnson To Direct ‘Fifty Shades Of … 
Inside AMPAS Board Of Governors’ Meeting: Conflict Of … 
Glenn Geller To Run Current Programming For CBS & CBS … 
Shailene Woodley’s Mary Jane Role Cut From ‘The … 
New ‘Star Wars’ Film Cast Breakdown Unveiled 
CAA Signs Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, Oscar-Winning … 
UPDATE: Dan Abrams Named New ‘Nightline’ Anchor … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘The Voice’ Finale On Par … 
Joy Bryant Returns To Longtime Agent Steve Alexander At … 
ITV Pays $30M For Controlling Stake In ‘Hatfields … 
Hot Trailer: ‘Anchorman 2′ 
2ND UPDATE: Charlie Sheen Fired Selma Blair From … 
Time Warner Cable Sued For Passing Lakers-Dodgers Costs On … 
Jonah Hill Signs For Management With LBI 
TOLDJA! ‘Dumb And Dumber To’ Proves No-Brainer … 
Salma Hayek’s Animated Passion Project ‘The … 
Relativity Moves Scott Cooper’s ‘Out Of The … 
Hot Trailer: ‘The Lego Movie’ 
Comedy ‘I Didn’t Do It’ Gets Series Order … 
Liv Tyler To Co-Star In Damon Lindelof’s HBO Pilot … 
DreamWorks Animation Launches Effort To Re-Position Itself … 
With three new Star Wars movies in the pipeline, Lucasfilm and Disney today turned its attention to the power of the Force on TV. “Lucasfilm has decided to pursue a new direction in animated programing,” the company announced online. Lucasfilm said that it’s “exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or TV programming.” What that new direction will actually be beyond “stay tuned” and will it see Star Wars on Disney XD is yet to be known — though that is where the boss is leaning. “We really like Star Wars‘ potential on TV, and Disney XD would be a great home for that,” Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger said when the $4.06 billion deal to buy Lucasfilm was announced on October 30.
Related: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill On Board For ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’?
However, what is known is that the new direction for Star Wars on TV includes no longer producing more Star Wars: The Clone Wars for Cartoon Network, as it has since 2008. “We feel the time has come to wind down the series,” said Lucasfim today. Also the company is postponing the release of the Seth Green-Todd Grimes-Matthew Sereich-produced animated Star Wars comedy series Detours, which was first announced last year.
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
Loading ...
No big surprise, but it’s good to know the series will live on.
Disney XD is a joke. The channel that killed the critically acclaimed TRON: Uprising before it even saw the light of day. No idea why they did that but they went out of there way to do so. Google it.
perrrrhaps if more kids had watched the show they would have kept it…
That’s still their fault!
Things like marketing could be blamed.
I agree im so annoyed
I have a bad feeling about this.
It’s STAR WARS and it’s television.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, I guess that settles that? Rather heartbroken that Clone Wars isn’t coming back! I wonder what they’re going to do with all those season 6 episodes they were working on, or even the season 5 ones that didn’t air (the Clovis arc)?
Okay, so “a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or TV programming” could mean several things: 1)The time between the trilogies 2) The Old Republic??? Finally????
Nowhere did it say they’re going to stop airing Clone Wars episodes that are already produced.
You’re right, I panicked. I guess “winding down” does leave some possibilities open for the final eps.
The time between the trilogies gets my vote as the most likely guess, continuing the saga of Ahsoka. They’ve invested in the character, why stop now?
Another guess: post-Return of the Jedi, picking up the story of Luke, Leia and Han right after the Ewok Dance.
PS, no Ewoks please.
No! Say it isn’t so. My son will throw a fit!!!
Your son, I’m a grown man and I’m about to throw a fit….lol
that was the first thing that came to my mind as well…. “ry is going to be crushed”.
New time period? The era after Return of the Jedi. It makes sense to create something to bridge the classic trilogy and the new trilogy, and perhaps bring back the classic characters into the limelight a bit to get the audiences ready for Episode 7… Perhaps an action cartoon with new younger characters, but with Luke/Han/Leia playing a small background role as well….
Also, that Detours thing look horrible. Glad that got put away into Lucas’ bag of bad ideas…
Since I doubt they’ll premier Detours long after Episode VII is released, it must have really been permanently canned.
Disney XD is a complete joke and everyone at Disney knows it. They have the same executives running it that brought you such “boys hits” as High School Musical, Shake It Up and Hannah Montana. Every decent boys series there has been destroyed by female skewed or prenatal marketing. Until that changes, Luke Skywalker or any other truly boys targeted series is doomed on XD and if you don’t think so, do some research on the TRON animated series among other highly acclaimed shows. Haha, still calling XD “girls inclusive” in the press. Long live Rich Ross!
Uhm Truther, excuse me. But it was already reported on this website last Friday:
“Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man Season 2 debuted in January 2013, and to date, is Disney XD’s No. 1 animated series in target demos Kids 2-11 (265,000/0.7 rating), Boys 2-11 (197,000/1.0 rating) and Boys 6-11 (138,000/1.1 rating).”
Did you see the part where it says No 1. in target demos, blah, blah, blah?
Well, with Clone Wars ending – at least Ahsoka Tano got to survive the experience and perphaps we’ll get to see her in the new trilogy.
~
Coat
Disney XD doesn’t actually produce that show and has a strict hands off policy with Marvel as they f’d up so many of their projects in the past. BTW, those numbers are a joke compared to CN.
They also listed the recently canceled The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as a top-rated show.
But technically, Avengers:EMH wasn’t really cancelled, it’s currently being revamped as Avengers Assemble to reflect the current movie universe while pressing forward from where EMH left off which was a tactical decision on Marvel’s end.
Not that I’m holding my breath on whether they’ll keep to their word or not.
~
Coat
Totally agree Truther. XD is Princess obsessed. Unless it becomes the Leia hour, it will fail. Oh, and you can FORGET Han Solo. No way is a guy who talks back to a princess going to make it on that channel.
“This deal is getting worse all the time.”
Well…let’s wait and see.
Something on The Old Republic era would be exciting. Tons of Jedi and Sith running around the Galaxy in massive battles.
Is Cartoon Network run by a bunch of idiots? Nothing else explains the horrible decision to cancel Green Lantern and Young Justice… and now losing Clone Wars.
Clearly these morons have no long-term plans (otherwise there would be *CONTRACTS* in place), and think running a cable channel is kid’s play. What a joke!
Hope whoever owns Cartoon Network cleans house soon. Bring in executives who know what they’re doing!
You have not understood this article — or what happened w/YJ or the abhorrent GL series — at all.
CN could have asked for more.
GL abhorrent? Where do you get off? And why don’t you provide us with a link to demonstate us with a link to WHAT you’re talking about?
~
Coat
It will forever be tied with that flop movie.
GREAT NEWS! The “comedy” show titled Detours was set to turn Star Wars into a bigger joke than it already is. The Clone Wars series was terrible. Their idea was to cram as many boring clones, laser blasts and robots into frame at once and call that “exciting”. Hopefully they’ve decided to focus on the core characters and concept. The Jedi Knights are far more interesting when there’s only a handful of them!
Clearly, You’ve never EVER watched Clone Wars. In fact, I question if you’ve ever even seen Star Wars. Detours did look lame. I’ll give you that, but Clone Wars is amazing and it’s dark and it gives the fans so much more depth into the stories Lucas told in the films. Your assessment of Clone Wars is weak. Great show. Disney prob just wants XD to take over (ruin) the brand.
Translation: “We’re greedy and we’re slowly eliminating thousands of Lucas contracts with outside companies because we think we can make 5 more dollars by going totally in house.”
Of course, what Disney doesn’t seem to get is Lucas picked licensees’ shrewdly, teaming with the best companies in terms of quality and reputation. Cartoon Network was the perfect home for Clone Wars.
I don’t know if I agree w/all of this, but, yeah, this clearly a move to take Star Wars off of a competing network.
Seems silly.
They could’ve renewed w/CN and developed OTHER series on XD and increase their coverage across channels.
star wars is not meant to be a stupid comedy and why are you guys stoping the clone wars its the most awesome show ive ever seen disney is making a HUGE MISTAKE by doing this. who agrees with me?
I loved ahsoka! And now that she’s gone I don’t know what 2 expect! I just hope Disney doesn’t crap the show up
Well, George Lucas wasn’t stupid enough to just leave it all up to Disney. He let his second in command control Star Wars. It’s just going to be on Disney so you can deal with it being different, it’s gonna be the same. Just so you know the truth…
This is me too.
We assumed.
Well, guess what. George Lucas wasn’t stupid enough to just give away Star Wars to Disney. His second in command (forgot the name) is the director now so, pretty much, it’s just gonna be the same thing on a different channel so… don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. Disney won’t do anything to it at all. But, really? I hope the next season in one of the episodes will follow Ahsoka’s story. You know, like, what they did on those few episodes in season 3 with Boba Fett.
Are they pursuing any live action efforts? A Star Wars centered cable series would blow Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead out of the water when it comes to “nerdy” tv.
But would cost too much money.
Yes, I have seen the Clone Wars cartoon series. And yes – it’s TERRIBLE. Even worse, it’s aesthetically UGLY. Look, the entire Star Wars brand when in the toilet when the “special editions” came out. Starting with Episode 4, with the addition of the terrible Jabba the Hutt scene, and Boba Fett, turning to essentially WINK AT THE CAMERA, I knew Lucas had lost it. The success of all the following CRAP was thanks to Original Trilogy nostalgia. People got sweep up and the momentum and “hope for something good” carried the franchise for years. All the little kids went ga-ga over the overused CG and laser blasts, sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that the entire IP turned into a bloated piece of Power Rangers garbage. I am THRILLED that it now appears things are on a new path. Hoping for some magic!
Right after episode 6 came out, Dark Horse Comics produced a terrific 6 part comic story called “Dark Empire”. I would LOVE to see that be the basis of the next trilogy, and it would allow for some of the old characters to be in the new films. Also good would be “Crimson Empire”, which took place 12 years after the death of the real Palpatine, and concerned several of the crimson guards of the former emperor trying to become the next emperor, and a group of Jedi who try to stop them. I think that would make for a good series of movies too. Finally, Dark Horse’s Sith comics, that take place 25000 years before Luke and Vader, but are every bit Star Wars, would be cool to see. “The Golden Age of the Sith” would be one of the best to be a movie. What potential there is!
It isn’t really fair to compare DXD to CN, seeing that the latter is in much more homes.
signed, David Levine
It is sad that the show is coming to an end.
I love Star Wars the clon wars I am reading the books but I really hop you come bake on. And when will it come bake on
Clone Wars made new Star Wars fans out of kids who were born long after the last Star Wars prequel aired. The kids who went to see the sequel are now in the 20′s.
The Clone Wars have won hearts and minds of the little ones who buy up all those Lego Star Wars videogames and action figures. They’d be wise to keep that ball rolling, even if no one over ten watches the thing.
I think I realize the problem. Pixar and Marvel were already releasing movies before the Disney acquisitions. Lucasfilm, on the other hand, wasn’t. Did they always plan to make a ton of layoffs just so they can put all their eggs in one basket?
Is it a good thing to make Star Wars seem even more like just another “nostalgia” thing suddenly revived?