Willow - Season 1
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Willow is an American high fantasy adventure television series based on and serving as a sequel to the 1988 film of the same name. Produced by Lucasfilm and Imagine Entertainment, the series was mostly filmed in Wales in April 2021,[4] and premiered on the streaming service Disney+ on November 30, 2022. In March 2023, the series was reportedly canceled after only one season,[5] though Jonathan Kasdan stated that the series was on hiatus.[6]
In October 2020, the series was greenlit, with Jon M. Chu directing the pilot episode and Davis reprising his titular role.[7][29] Chu would announce that he had to step away from directing duties due to a production delay and personal reasons in January 2021.[30] Later that month, Jonathan Entwistle was hired to replace Chu as director of the pilot, and as executive producer.[31] However, due to production delays as a result of a recasting, Entwistle also exited the series, with Stephen Woolfenden coming in to direct the first two episodes of the series.[32] In March 2023, Disney+ canceled the series after only one season.[5] However, Kasdan took to Twitter declaring that the cast was released from their contracts due to the shifts going on at Disney and that there is hope that the series could still pick up at some point in the future.[6]
After several statements that the Disney+ series Willow would be canceled after one season, viewers and critics are relieved to hear that the show is actually being delayed for a year, not scrapped. Willow is a spin-off television series made by Lucasfilm based on the 1988 film of the same name. The story follows the dangerous adventures of six unlikely heroes as they face personal battles and save their world.
A major detail of Willow that definitely kept fans invested in the series was the addition of an LGBTQ+ romance. Other Disney and Lucasfilm properties have included LGBTQ+ representation, but Willow is one of the first to be totally explicit about their queer characters. One of Willow's main characters, Princess Kit Tanthalos has a female love interest throughout the series' first season, her knight errant, Jade Claymore.
This relationship is a sweet addition to the show, but more importantly, offers some much-needed representation for LGBTQ+ kids and teens. Having Kit and Jade's relationship be so clear is truly an achievement for Disney and Lucasfilm, and canceling the series after only one season would have been an immediate step back. Willow's queer representation makes the show greater story-wise and also bolsters its success by bringing in a wide, diverse audience.
The biggest upset to canceling Willow would have been the lost chance to have an even better Willow season 2. While season 1 was a success for viewers and critics, the opportunity to create a bigger and better second season is an enticing scenario. Willow season 2 would be able to continue the storylines left in the finale and give the characters a chance to really grow into themselves with new plots and stories. Plus, the show's creators could use fans' critics and opinions from Willow season 1 to develop an even better series. If Willow had been canceled, this potential may never have gotten a chance to be followed through on.
In fact, the show's producer Roopesh Parekh has indicated that the season finale leaves the story open for a possible second season. "I think that we complete this story, but we absolutely leave a lot of angles open for the future," Parekh told Comicbook.com back in November.
Additionally, Willow showrunner Jonathan Kasdan shared a similar sentiment at a press conference, as per Screenrant.com, sharing that he would love to expand the series beyond just one season. "We'd love to continue the story on. Where it seems to be that the street leads from movies to TV, I hope that we're headed toward a moment where the reverse direction can be done too," Kasdan stated. "The first thing we'd like to do is another season because we've got a lot more that we'd like to tell here."
Hopefully, as many cast members as possible would have been ready and willing to come back for another season. But again, no deals, negotiations, or contracts with the actors were made. We were all pumped at the thought of a second season for Willow. For now, though, we need to find a new fantasy show to watch.
It's still unknown whether or not we'll see how this plays out in a second season, but executive producer Ron Howard (and director of the original 1988 film) is thrilled with what they've done so far. "I wouldn't have even supported [the project] if it hadn't been for [Jonathan Kasdan's] instincts and take on how to make the show be more contemporary and not be nostalgic," Howard tells EW. "He was such a fan of the movie and understood it and the DNA of it. I knew he could get the tone and build on it."
JONATHAN KASDAN: There was some conversation about that. But we all felt that there was something beautifully tragic about Graydon, and as a character, he is our Dark Prince. We always called him the Dark Prince in our construction of the show. One of the questions we always had and hoped to keep alive to some extent throughout the season was, "Is he good or is he evil?" As the show progressed, he's pretty definitively good. His devotion to Elora was so pure, and the way he played those scenes was so lovely and tender. It felt like the thing that would most impel Elora into this final stage of her development was the loss of this completely devoted person. As is often the case with these decisions, and they're sometimes unpopular, sometimes you want the most devastating possible thing. And for her, he felt like that.
Kit's journey is about embracing responsibility. It's a very personal idea to me because I myself struggle with this very question of, "How much responsibility do I want to have? And family and who do I take responsibility for?" She's running away from that responsibility all season. In the end of the season, she finds herself moved by Elora and devoted to her, and above all the other characters, she is the one most equipped to protect her, spiritually and emotionally. Metaphorically, Elora represents the natural spirit of the world, and Kit represents our human role in that. She goes from being very selfish to very generous. It's that journey that makes her worthy of the armor.
Huge. There's the promise of a lot of things in that final scene. But the big one for me is that in a character like Elora, much like Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter, there is the potential for incredible good and incredible darkness. We wanted to complicate the meaning of that a little bit over the course of the season and not have such hard and fast concepts of good and evil. Particularly Star Wars has a very clear bad guys-good guys thing, and we've made it much more in our series about desires versus ideals and the conflict between those two forces within ourselves. Certainly, that conflict is alive in Elora. The temptation of what the Wyrm represents is powerful. Ellie communicates it in this almost ecstatic way that she plays out the battle with the Crone. It's terrifying and hard, but it's also clearly getting her off a little bit (laughs). We really wanted to play on that and unequivocally with that final scene, stay with the fact that the potential for something really bad is in her too. Something really rather destructive is in her too.
The events of the finale have to be dealt with in a meaningful way at the top of wherever the story goes and the implications of the trauma those events caused to our characters and where it lands each of them. I'd love to get these characters out of that desert. Beyond that, they're all looking at very clear conflicts that were deeply positioned in season 1. Specifically, with Jade, the question of her loyalties and where her politics are going to land her is at the forefront in our minds in terms of where that character can go and, and how she's torn between love and country a little bit. There's no shortage of directions that we'd love to explore, but at its core, it is about this conflict between this otherworldly entity and our heroes. And that's far from over.
The season finale of Willow created a watershed moment for our heroes. What would be particularly tragic is if Disney doesn't renew the series. The episode "Children of the Wyrm" had Kit (Ruby Cruz), Elora (Ellie Bamber), Graydon (Tony Revolori), Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel), Jade (Erin Kellyman), and Willow (Warwick Davis) in an epic confrontation with the Crone (Jane Carr) while being confronted with temptation from the Wyrm. Original director Ron Howard and showrunners & creator Jonathan Kasdan spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the unraveled twists and future of the Disney+ series. The following contains major spoilers, obviously.
When it came to what Howard thought of the first season, "I wouldn't have even supported [the project] if it hadn't been for [Jonathan Kasdan's] instincts and take on how to make the show be more contemporary and not be nostalgic," he said. "He was such a fan of the movie and understood it and the DNA of it. I knew he could get the tone and build on it." The actor and director said that there were always plans to expand the 1988 story, but budget and technological limitations prevented that only until recently.
Upon Graydon's sacrifice, "There was some conversation about that. But we all felt that there was something beautifully tragic about Graydon, and as a character, he is our Dark Prince. We always called him the Dark Prince in our construction of the show. One of the questions we always had and hoped to keep alive to some extent throughout the season was, 'Is he good or is he evil?' As the show progressed, he's pretty definitively good," Kasdan said. "His devotion to Elora was so pure, and the way he played those scenes was so lovely and tender. It felt like the thing that would most impel Elora into this final stage of her development was the loss of this completely devoted person. As is often the case with these decisions, and they're sometimes unpopular, sometimes you want the most devastating possible thing. And for her, he felt like that." 781b155fdc