Cancelled Series Star Wars: Underworld Was So Expensive, It Would've 'Blown Up' the Star Wars Universe

Rick McCallum, producer of the Star Wars prequels, recently revealed the staggering cost behind the cancelled Star Wars: Underworld series: a jaw-dropping $40 million per episode. This exorbitant budget, he explained on the Young Indy Chronicles podcast, stemmed from episodes exceeding the scale of the films themselves. Even with the technology available at the time, $40 million per episode was the lowest achievable cost. McCallum considers the project's failure "one of the great disappointments of our lives."

With 60 "third draft" scripts penned by some of the world's best writers, showcasing a "sexy, violent, dark, challenging, complicated, and wonderful" side of the Star Wars universe, the budget proved insurmountable. The estimated cost of $2.4 billion (60 scripts x $40 million/episode) was simply too much, even for George Lucas in the early 2000s. McCallum suggests the series' ambition would have fundamentally reshaped the Star Wars universe, potentially impacting Disney's later acquisition of the franchise. Disney's acquisition and Lucas's departure ultimately sealed the project's fate.

While McCallum remained tight-lipped on plot specifics, fan speculation centers on the series bridging the gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Previous statements indicated an entirely new cast, significant expansion of the Star Wars universe, and a target audience of adults, rather than children and teenagers.

Initially unveiled at Star Wars Celebration in 2005, and with test footage surfacing in 2020, Star Wars: Underworld remains a "what if" scenario, a lost opportunity to explore a darker, more mature corner of the galaxy far, far away.