‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Release Date and Everything Fans Should Know About Plot, Cast
It’s been nearly a month since the rescue heard around the world when Luke Skywalker burst into the last act of the last episode of the hit Star Wars Disney+ series The Mandalorian Season 2.
Yet as delighted as fans were by this, they were at least as delighted, if not more so, by the mid-credits scene.
That scene revealed the next Star Wars series, The Book of Boba Fett. Fans went wild, having loved the bounty hunter’s redemptive arc in The Mandalorian. Now, he’s even taken Mando’s time slot on Disney+.
The long, strange journey of Boba Fett
The bounty hunter got his start not in The Empire Strikes Back, but in one of the most reviled and ironically loved Star Wars projects of all time: The Star Wars Holiday Special. That featured Carrie Fisher singing and Wookie growls that went untranslated, but it also featured animated segments with this bounty hunter that had formidable-looking armor.
His time in the Star Wars movies amounts to a whopping five minutes, according to Digital Spy. In Empire, he takes custody of Han Solo after he’s frozen, and he’s in only a couple of scenes of Return of the Jedi before he falls to what appears to be his doom in the sarlacc pit. In Attack of the Clones, we got to meet him as a young boy with his father Jango Fett.
Despite such limited screen time, a legend grew up around Boba Fett – so much so that the appeal of The Mandalorian was based on him. For a time, there was speculation that the Mandalorian was Boba Fett.
The show dispelled that notion fairly quickly, but it ultimately became a backdoor pilot for Boba Fett’s own show, with the finale showing Boba entering Jabba the Hutt’s former palace and taking command of the place very quickly.
Does ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ have a release date?
The Book of Boba Fett prompted intrigue just with its release date: December 2021. That would have been the expected timeframe for season 3 of The Mandalorian. But The Book of Boba Fett is not season 3 of The Mandalorian. As it turns out, both Book of Boba Fett and season three of The Mandalorian are expected to appear by Christmas 2021, according to Esquire.
As Inverse notes, the story of the show is so far unknown except for what can be inferred from the mid-credits sequence. Boba Fett takes over Jabba’s former operations, with an assist from Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand. Both she and Temuera Morrison are slated to return. Morrison is who played Jango Fett and all his clones in the prequel trilogy.
One of the reasons the Book of Boba Fett scene took viewers by surprise was that it was not included in Disney’s announcement of future movies and TV shows. That announcement was made just before the Mandalorian finale aired.
Showrunner Jon Favreau said, “We wanted to hold this back because we didn’t want to spoil the surprise during the big Disney announcement for all the shows, and so they let me keep this one a secret.”
So where does this leave ‘The Mandalorian?’
The Mandalorian giveth Baby Yoda and The Mandalorian taketh away Grogu. As much as viewers are excited about The Book of Boba Fett, there’s also the pressing matter of what happens with Grogu. When we last saw him, Luke Skywalker took custody of him. So will we not see the child for a while?
That’s a key question because arguably, Baby Yoda/Grogu ultimately became a bigger draw than Mando himself. The title character has been established enough that he’ll surely press on, but people may be less interested in The Mandalorian if there is less Baby Yoda. Whatever the case, the future is difficult to see, even as it holds a lot of promise.
