Jon Favreau Clarifies THE MANDALORIAN Season 4 Story Is Separate from the Movie
Fans of The Mandalorian have been wondering for months whether a fourth season is still on the table or if the story has fully shifted toward the upcoming film The Mandalorian and Grogu. Now creator Jon Favreau is clearing the air and offering some surprising insight into where things actually stand.
In the newest issue of Empire Magazine, Favreau revealed that the story for a full fourth season already exists and was never abandoned. He explained, “We were planning on doing a fourth season. I had actually written all of that. I still have Season 4 sitting on my desk here.”
This confirms that the material wasn’t created as a springboard for the movie. Instead, Favreau clarified that The Mandalorian and Grogu was built differently from the ground up, saying “It’s structured around a movie structure, as opposed to a serialized weekly television show. So there’s a larger throw to the whole thing.”
So while the scripts are completed, they were not simply reworked into the film. They stand as their own separate continuation of the story.
Even with those scripts ready to go, the odds of The Mandalorian Season 4 happening remain slim. Reports from early 2023 indicated that Disney wanted Lucasfilm to accelerate film production. Since then, the studio’s priority has clearly moved toward the big screen.
Right now, only one live action Star Wars series for Disney+ is known to be in development, while The Mandalorian and Grogu has already wrapped filming and Shawn Levy’s Starfighter movie is underway. The current strategy seems focused on returning Star Wars to theaters and letting characters like Din Djarin and Grogu make that transition with as much momentum as possible.
The real deciding factor will be how The Mandalorian and Grogu performs when it arrives in theaters on May 22, 2026. Lucasfilm is clearly hoping that Grogu’s massive popularity will pull families to cinemas, even those who aren’t Disney+ subscribers.
Favreau emphasized that accessibility. The film will still connect to what’s happening in Ahsoka Season 2, but newcomers won’t be lost. Empire reports that “newcomers who don’t know their Ahsoka from their elbow can jump right in.”
If the movie lands with general audiences, it’s easy to imagine The Mandalorian evolving into a full-on film series.
It’s nice to hear that Lucasfilm didn’t just turn a TV script into a movie this time. The studio had previously done that in reverse with The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Skeleton Crew, and the results were mixed.
Film and television demand completely different pacing and storytelling approaches, which makes it exciting to think about Din and Grogu possibly living in both spaces. That dual format would give fans the intimacy of the series and the scale of theatrical Star Wars.
So where does that leave things? Season 4 is ready to go, the scripts are real, and Favreau still has the pages sitting on his desk. Whether we ever see that story unfold will depend on how well The Mandalorian and Grogu performs and whether Lucasfilm sees room for Din and his little green buddy to return to the small screen.