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 whopping $40 million per episode. This exorbitant budget, exceeding even the cost of the films themselves, ultimately led to its demise. "The problem was that each episode was bigger than the films," McCallum explained on the Young Indy Chronicles podcast. "The lowest I could get it down to with the tech that existed then was $40 million an episode." He described the project's failure as "one of the great disappointments of our lives."

With 60 third-draft scripts penned by "the most wonderful writers in the world," the series envisioned a "sexy, violent, dark, challenging, complicated, and wonderful" expansion of the Star Wars universe. However, the estimated cost—easily exceeding $1 billion—proved insurmountable, even for George Lucas in the early 2000s. McCallum noted that the series' scale would have fundamentally reshaped the Star Wars universe, making Disney's subsequent acquisition of the franchise highly improbable. Disney's takeover and Lucas' departure ultimately sealed the series' fate.

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

First unveiled at Star Wars Celebration in 2005, and with test footage surfacing in 2020, Star Wars: Underworld remains a tantalizing "what if?" Sadly, it seems unlikely we'll ever see this ambitious project come to fruition.