Disney and Lucasfilm's line-up of original content for Disney+ includes a prequel series to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with Diego Luna returning as Cassian Andor. Now, Emerald City and Pacific Rim: Uprising Star Adria Arjona is the latest actor to join the cast of the upcoming series.
Disney's plan to produce standalone Star Wars films along with the Skywalker saga launched with the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Set just before the events of A New Hope, Rogue One followed Jyn Erso as she joined Cassian Andor and a band of rebels on a mission to retrieve the plans to the Empire's Death Star in order to discover the weapon's one weakness. The film was generally well-received and earned over $1 billion at the box office, eventually prompting Disney to order a prequel series described as a spy thriller that centers on Cassian Andor's early days in the rebellion.
Deadline reports that Adria Arjona, perhaps best known for her roles as Dorothy Gale in NBC's short-lived Emerald City and Jules Reyes in Legendary Pictures' Pacific Rim: Uprising, has joined the cast of the Rogue One prequel series, although details on the character she will portray are currently unknown. She joins a cast that includes Denise Gough, Genevieve O'Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard, Kyle Soller, and Alan Tudyk returning to provide the voice and motion capture performance of Andor's reprogrammed Imperial droid ally K-2SO. Additional credits to Arjona's name include Life of the Party, 6 Underground, and the upcoming Morbius opposite Jared Leto.
Rogue One co-writer Tony Gilroy, who reportedly reshot a significant portion of the footage shot by director Gareth Edwards, will oversee the series and serve as showrunner alongside Stephen Schiff. Gilroy also wrote the pilot for the series and will direct multiple episodes. Additional Star Wars projects being developed for Disney+ include an Obi-Wan Kenobi series, a female-centric show from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland, and animated series titled The Bad Batch.
Considering the generally positive reception towards Luna's Cassian Andor, interest in the Rogue One prequel is understandably high, especially after the praise and accolades earned by the first season of The Mandalorian. Of course, not everyone was a fan of Rogue One and it may be frustrating to see Lucasfilm's plans to expand the Star Wars universe remain largely focused on creating prequels with characters fans have met before.
Still, after the negative reactions to The Rise of Skywalker and the poor box office performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story, fans might be more interested in seeing Disney shift their attention to the franchise's television projects regardless of who the main characters will be. After all, The Mandalorian arguably showed that the television division is working out better, in terms of quality, than the film side.
The Cassian Andor series will be available exclusively on Disney+ at an undetermined date.
Source: Deadline