Rick McCallum, producer of the Star Wars prequels, recently revealed a heartbreaking truth about the cancelled Star Wars: Underworld series: its astronomical budget. Each episode would have cost a staggering $40 million to produce, a figure that ultimately sealed its fate.
"The problem was that each episode was bigger than the films," McCallum explained on the Young Indy Chronicles podcast. "So 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 to materialize as "one of the great disappointments of our lives."
With 60 third-draft scripts showcasing a "sexy, violent, dark, challenging, complicated, and wonderful" Star Wars universe, penned by top-tier writers, the budget proved insurmountable. Even at the early 2000s, the estimated cost—well over $1 billion—was beyond reach, even for George Lucas.
McCallum noted that the series' scale would have fundamentally reshaped the Star Wars universe, likely preventing Disney's subsequent acquisition of the franchise. Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm and Lucas's departure effectively ended any hope for the project.
While McCallum remained tight-lipped on plot specifics, fan speculation centers on the period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. He previously indicated a fresh cast of characters, a significant expansion of the Star Wars universe, and a target audience of adults, rather than children or teenagers.
First unveiled at Star Wars Celebration in 2005, and with test footage surfacing in 2020, Star Wars: Underworld remains a "what if" scenario, a lost opportunity for a darker, more mature Star Wars saga.
