Obi-Wan Kenobi TV Series: ‘King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword’ Scribe Takes Over As Writer
Joby Harold, whose writing credits includeAwake,King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and Zack Snyder’s upcomingArmy of the Dead, has been hired as the new writer of the untitled Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+. Get the details below.Varietyhas the news, reporting that Harold is taking over as the show’s writer after the show wasshut down earlier this year.Drivescreenwriter Hossein Amini turned in scripts, sets were built, staff were hired, and starEwan McGregorwas back on board…but Lucasfilm decided to pull the plug and start from scratch, throwing out Amini’s scripts and beginning the search for a new writer to come in and take over. That search, which at one time reportedly includedThe Mandalorianveterans Dave Filoni and Christopher Yostas options, is now over, as the studio has hired Joby Harold to get things back on track.
Harold is an unexpected choice for this job, since he’s arguably better known as a producer than a writer at this point. He’s produced or executive producedEdge of Tomorrow,Robin Hood,John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and the WGN America seriesUnderground, among other things. On the writing side, he wrote and directed his first feature film,Awake, back in 2007, and a decade passed before his script forKing Arthur: The Legend of the Swordwas eventually produced. That film wassupposed to launch a six-movie franchise, but didn’t perform well enough to even get one sequel, let alone five.Army of the Deadis in post-production and he’s on board to write anotherTransformersproject, but those are the only four writing credits listed. This is the first time he’ll be writing for television.
McGregor anddirectorDeborah Chow(Better Call Saul,The Mandalorian) are still signed on. Details of the revamped version of the scripts are obviously being guarded incredibly closely at this point, but we assume it will still featurea young Luke Skywalkerin some capacity. (If it does not feature a young Luke, that would be a massive step for Disney, who has clung to its pre-establishedStar Warscharacters as much as humanly possible since purchasing Lucasfilm in 2012.) The earlier iteration of the series was going to be seteight years afterStar Wars: Revenge of the Sithand was rumored to feature a bearded Jar-Jar Binks, but it’s unclear if any of those ideas will make it into these new scripts. Hopefully the second time is the charm on this one.
