Before we got hooked on The Mandalorian or Andor on Disney+, did you know George Lucas once had an idea for a Star Wars TV series that could’ve been groundbreaking?
He wanted to bring us Star Wars: Underworld—a live-action show exploring the galaxy’s darker side, from smugglers to bounty hunters and everything in between.
But as incredible as it sounded, the show never made it past the planning stages.
Here’s why this ambitious project remained unrealized.
Star Wars: Underworld’s Budget Was Too Much for TV
At its core, Underworld was Lucas’ attempt to expand the Star Wars universe beyond the saga’s iconic Jedi-Sith conflicts.
The show aimed for a more grounded and mature tone, focusing on smugglers, bounty hunters, and crime syndicates.
With over 100 completed scripts written by top Hollywood talent, Lucas envisioned a series on par with the cinematic quality of his films.
However, the ambition came with a price—quite literally. Lucas estimated that the series would cost around $4–5 million per episode to produce, a staggering amount for television in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
To put it into perspective, even high-budget shows like Game of Thrones were only spending around $6 million per episode during their early seasons—and that was years later, in a much more evolved streaming landscape.
At the time, streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ didn’t have the infrastructure or market dominance they do today.
Television was still largely dependent on network broadcasting, and few networks were willing to take on such a massive financial risk, especially for a genre show.
As a result, the high production costs became the project’s most significant obstacle.
George Lucas and his team pushed boundaries with concepts like virtual sets and cinematic-quality visuals on a TV budget.
Test footage, created with Stargate Studios, showcased Coruscant’s bustling underworld in real-time using green screen technology.
However, despite positive feedback, networks passed on the project due to its staggering costs—over $5 million per episode—and Lucas’s insistence on retaining full ownership of the series and all related merchandise.
To make the show feasible, Lucas envisioned building a cutting-edge facility, Grady Ranch, to produce the series. Unfortunately, local opposition blocked its construction, adding another hurdle.
The Technology Delayed Star Wars: Underworld
George Lucas had an ambitious vision for Star Wars: Underworld—he wanted it to look and feel as cinematic as the films.
The plan was to blend CGI with practical effects on a level that rivaled what audiences had seen on the big screen.
Lucas wanted to push the boundaries of what television could achieve.
However, the technology of the mid-2000s wasn’t ready to match Lucas’s ambition within a television budget.
Lucas himself admitted that the scope of the series was “beyond what could be accomplished economically.”
He wasn’t willing to compromise on quality, but at the same time, producing high-quality Star Wars visuals on a TV scale wasn’t financially feasible.
Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum also highlighted the immense technical challenges when he said, “If we get the series right, if we get the right tone on it and it’s exciting, we’re able to deal with the technology and really push what you’re able to see on television an extra leap forward, I think it can be absolutely fantastic.”