#The Book Of Boba Fett Is Finally Giving Us A Star Wars Crime Story, And It’s About Time

Before we get into speculation, it’s important to remember how long we’ve been waiting for Lucasfilm to finally give us a crime story set in the galaxy far, far away. George Lucas first announced the proposed live-action series titled “Star Wars: Underworld” at Star Wars Celebration way back in 2005. The idea was to do a show set amid the Coruscant crime world between Episodes III and IV, with then-producer Rick McCallum at times comparing it to “Deadwood,” “The Wire” and “The Godfather,” while Lucas himself likened it to a noir from the 1940s. Last year, some visually arresting test footage from 2010 leaked, showing off a shaky-cam style anathema to the usual “Star Wars” cinematography. Writer Ronald D. Moore of “Battlestar Galactica” fame was brought in to write scripts, and a staff reportedly produced 50 teleplays with an eye towards ABC picking it up, but budget considerations kept “Underworld” from taking off. 

While this show never got off the ground, many concepts were pilfered from it for other projects. For instance, the character of Saw Gerrera was conceived for “Underworld” but eventually made his way to “The Clone Wars,” “Rebels” and “The Bad Batch,” as well as live-action in “Rogue One.” That latter movie also began as an idea John Knoll had for an episode, and plans to show the origins of Han and Chewie’s relationship from “Solo” were also originally meant as “Underworld” episodes. There was even a planned video game tie-in from LucasArts titled “Star Wars: 1313” featuring Boba Fett in the underworld that was eventually canceled when Disney took over the brand. 

However, in 2015 Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told us that those projects were still being pilfered for the new “Star Wars” projects in development:

“Interestingly enough, thats an area we’ve spent a lot of time, reading through the material that he developed is something we very much would like to explore. And there was 1313 the game… Our attitude is, we don’t want to throw any of that stuff away. It’s gold. And it’s something we’re spending a lot of time looking at, pouring through, discussing, and we may very well develop those things further. We definitely want to.”