Yahoo Autos Willow Showrunner Takes Issue With The Word 'Cancellation,' Explains What's Going On With Season 2
Just a few months after the Season 1 finale released on Disney+, Willow seemingly got the worst kind of news that a streaming series with the potential for a long run can get: cancellation after just one round of episodes. While the early reports suggested that Willow became the third show cancelled by Disney+ in the span of a month, some new comments from showrunner Jon Kadsan suggest that fans didn’t get the whole story. As it turns out, he had his eye on the entertainment industry news as well, and he takes issue with the reports that the fantasy series was “cancelled.”
Willow brought Warwick Davis back to the role of Willow Ufgood that he debuted all the way back in 1988 in the film of the same name, as well as plenty of newcomers. The show ended on a tease of not just one but two more seasons despite not having a guaranteed renewal, with Jon Kasdan explaining why when speaking to CinemaBlend back in January.
Now, in the wake of the reports of cancellation, the showrunner has taken to Twitter to point out that the truth is a lot more complicated. Writing that he appreciates that “punchy headlines drive clicks,” he feels “fairly confident that, if asked, neither I, nor the folks at Lucasfilm, would or have actually characterized it” as Willow being cancelled after one season. He continued:
The truth is less splashy, but here it is: A decision was made last week to release our main cast for other series opportunities that may arise for them in the coming year. With all the tv and movies in production around the world, it feels unfair to limit an actor’s availability without a clear sense of when you’re going to need them again. It’s further trivialized by the simple reality that the scripts we’ve been working on require just as many actors (from our first season) with whom no such contractual hold exists. Nothing prevented Annabelle Davis, for example, from taking another show, but you better believe Mims appears in every single VOLUME II chapter.
Apparently, the “cancellation” only goes as far as the main cast members not being contractually obligated to pass on non-Willow projects over the next year. Cast options expiring have spelled trouble for shows in the past, with clocks ticking to figure out the future. For example, Manifest seemed doomed despite rescue efforts due to cast options expiring back in 2021 after its NBC cancellation, and Magnum P.I. was close to the wire of cast options expiring last summer after the CBS cancellation.
