Building the ‘Star Wars’ Universe on TV: Inside the Making of ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi,’ ‘Andor’ and ‘The Mandalorian’

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor In Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” season three’s newest star Meryl Streep plays Loretta Durkin, a scatter-brained and quirky struggling actor. When production designer Rich Murray got the creative brief, he was told, “She’s charming and warm and has lived in the same studio apartment for the past 35 to 40 years.” With that, Murray peppered in Easter eggs galore as an homage to Streep’s illustrious career. Murray first had to come up with a concept for the space, and found inspiration from the 1951 film “An American in Paris.” Jerry Mulligan’s (Gene Kelly) apartment was ideal.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” created over 240 unique characters who feature across the six different universes in the film, but Daniel Kaluuya‘s Hobart “Hobie” Brown (aka Spider-Punk) was one of the last characters production designer Patrick O’Keefe and head of character Alan Hawkins dove into. Speaking with Variety, Hawkins says the character went through a lot of design tests. “Those tests were educational in that they didn’t work, and we learned about how not to do them.” After that, the character was put on the shelf while the animators refined his design.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat has scored the music for Netflix’s “Nyad.” Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “Nyad” stars Annette Bening as Diana Nyad, an athlete, who at 60, achieves her lifelong dream of finishing the 110-mile open ocean swim from Cuba to Florida. In a statement to Variety, Desplat said, “Chai and Jimmy’s direction is very strong.

EXCLUSIVE: Samba TV reports that the Live+5 day viewership for the first episode of Disney+/Lucasfilm’s new series Ahsoka drew 1.2M households.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for Episode 7 of “The Real Housewives of New York City” Season 14 now streaming on Peacock TV and airing on Bravo TV. Jessel Taank of “The Real Housewives of New York City” is calmly waiting in the reception area of PMC’s New York headquarters Accompanying her is her mother, Nilam, who is visiting from London, and Taank’s patience stands in contrast to how the internet has painted her. Through seven episodes of the new season, among the show’s ardent fandom, she’s the “Real Housewives” cast member audiences love to hate, and has been called both “entitled” and a “princess.” Dressed in an oversized, immaculately crisp white button-down that doubles as a dress by Jill Sander, daringly, Taank sips a hot coffee.

What To Watch. Today we recommend a mix of new releases and newly available titles, from movies and shows, all available to stream on the most popular platforms.What to watch: 7 movies and shows to stream this week — August 11What to watch: 7 movies and shows to stream this week — August 18Starring Sunny Sandler, Adam Sandler’s daughter, and based on the novel of the same name, follows two young best friends who’ve long dreamed about their bat mitzvah’s. Things of course don’t go as planned.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor David Klotz landed three Emmy nominations for his work as a sound editor across very different shows. Klotz worked on “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” “House of the Dragon” and “Stranger Things.” His biggest challenge was tackling the insertion of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” in “Stranger Things.” With Netflix’s “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” the dark and twisted story of the serial killer, veteran gloom-rocker Nick Cave and his frequent collaborator Warren Ellis worked on the score. Klotz took a different approach since the duo had scored the pilot and wrote an entire library of music.

With Star Wars: Ahsoka’s first two episodes airing Tuesday night, fans are left with some important questions about the characters in this show. Fans who are new to the Star Wars franchise may be confused about who some of these characters being name-dropped are. To be more specific, who exactly is Ezra Bridger? What do you need to know before watching Ahsoka? Hollywood News Daily has you covered.

Star Wars fans have one key gripe about the first two episodes of Ahsoka, involving a certain character’s survival.At the end of the show’s first episode, Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) is stabbed in the stomach during a lightsaber duel with Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno).While it appeared as if she had been killed, Sabine is seen alive in a hospital bed in the next episode – with no explanation as to how she survived.This isn’t the first time a Star Wars character has survived a seemingly fatal lightsaber wound. In the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Third Sister Reva (Moses Ingram) survives a stab wound from Darth Vader, while the Grand Inquisitor (Rupert Friend) is similarly brought back to life following a lightsaber injury.Darth Maul was also revived in Star Wars: The Clone Wars despite being cut in half in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.Following Sabine’s survival in Ahsoka, many have since pointed out the inconsistencies with past deaths in the Star Wars franchise – namely Qui-Gon Jinn’s (Liam Neeson) death after he’s stabbed in the stomach by Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.“I don’t know how I feel about yet again someone getting stabbed in the stomach by a lightsaber and surviving,” one viewer wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.Another added: “Besides Sabine getting stabbed in the abdomen and surviving, the two episodes were solid.

Star Wars” to streaming in a way that would satisfy lifelong fans without alienating anyone who has never before traveled to a galaxy far, far away. In many ways, that mission faces its greatest challenge with the newest “Star Wars” show, “Ahsoka.” Technically a spin-off of Rosario Dawson’s performance as former Jedi Ahsoka Tano on “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett,” the show is really a sequel to two “Star Wars” animated shows: “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels.” Taken together, these shows, which ran from 2008 to 2020, span 208 episodes of TV, and roughly cover the events between “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” and “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” (on “Clone Wars”) and “Revenge of the Sith” and “Star Wars: A New Hope” (on “Rebels”).

Aramide Tinubu Fans of the animated series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars: Rebels” will undoubtedly feel redeemed amid the arrival of Disney+’s latest “Star Wars” entry, “Ahsoka.” Set in the same timeframe as the third chapter of “The Mandalorian,” this new eight-episode series follows ex-Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson). After surviving the Jedi purge and being rescued from the clutches of her former master, Darth Vader (aka Anakin Skywalker), Ahsoka finds herself on a quest to save the fragile New Republic. Having “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett” and the gorgeously dark “Andor” under their belts, LucasFilm has hit its stride when it comes to live-action “Star Wars” entries.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Subtle details in costume design, hairstyling and even production design showed the growth and progression of Selena Gomez’s Mabel in Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.” Season 2 begins where the first left off — Mabel is the prime suspect after being found by the side of the dead body of Bunny, who lives in the same building as Mabel, Oliver (Martin Short) and Charles (Steve Martin). When audiences were first introduced to Mabel in Season 1, she’s someone who is trying to protect herself. Costume designer Dana Covarrubias says, “I put her in chunky- soled boots and big puffy coats and jackets that create this sense of a protective armor around her.” As the season progresses and she begins to connect with Oliver and Charles, she softens up.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Sasha Colby is on top of the world. Well, she’s on her balcony looking out at it. Colby hasn’t had a moment to stop since being crowned the winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 15.

Disney+ series Ahsoka appears to have leaked a surprise about the return of a Star Wars character. Spoilers below.The new Star Wars series, which is set for release on streaming on August 22, sees Rosario Dawson reprise her role as the titular Jedi after making her live-action debut in The Mandalorian season 2.The series follows Ahsoka as she wanders the galaxy in search of the villain Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen, reprising his voice role from Rebels).

Jaden Thompson It’s not every day a director works on a series with a built-in legion of multigenerational fans ready to binge each episode and dissect every scene. Deborah Chow, who helmed all six episodes of Disney+’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” experienced exactly that. The limited series, which Chow also executive produced, centers on the titular Jedi (Ewan McGregor) and former mentor to Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) and is set between the two “Star Wars” trilogies.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Lenny Kravitz has written and recorded an original song “Road to Freedom” for George C. Wolfe’s upcoming film “Rustin.” Wolfe’s film stars Colman Domingo as the gay activist Bayard Rustin who helped co-organize the historic March on Washington. In a statement to Variety, Wolfe said, “I first met Lenny very early in both of our careers…and the first time I heard him sing was acapella, and I remember the sound quite vividly, and there was something about the quality of his voice that seemed viscerally perfect for the end of the film.

Prime Video and Variety collaborated to host Master Crafts at NYA Studios East, an event featuring the Emmy-nominated artisans behind Prime Video’s shows. Moderated by Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay, the five panels included “Music to Our Ears,” with music supervisors, sound editors and mixers; “World Building” with cinematographers, production designers and a VFX supervisor; “Looking the Part,” with costume designers and makeup artists; “Names and Faces” with casting directors; and “The Final Cut” with producers. The creatives behind critically acclaimed shows such as “The Marvelous Mrs.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Prime Video has debuted the trailer for their upcoming drama “A Million Miles Away.” Based on a true story, Michael Peña stars as José Hernández, the first migrant farm worker to become an astronaut and go to space. The film will be released on Sept. 15 in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “My job is to make sure that every production, wherever it is in the world, is to make it seem like nobody has ever seen it before,” theater producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh says talking about his shows like “Cats,” “Miss Saigon,” “Oliver,” “Mary Poppins” and “Les Miserables.” It’s the latter which is currently dazzling audiences at Hollywood’s Pantages through Sept. 10 and has undergone a makeover for its latest incarnation. Over 71 million people worldwide have seen the show.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor BAFTA-nominated visual effects supervisor Jake Morrison has joined VFX studio DNEG. Morrison, who has worked on films such as “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Thor: Ragnarok” and Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” has over 25 years of experience in visual effects.