Jon Watts’ Secret ‘Star Wars’ Western Series Surfaces After ‘Skeleton Crew’, and Its Fate Is a Mystery

Jon Watts has quietly become one of the more interesting voices at Lucasfilm, and his ‘Star Wars’ series work is a big reason why. Long before the filmmaker behind Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy was linked to a galaxy far, far away, he and writing partner Christopher Ford were kicking around a simple idea about kids getting lost in space.

That idea became ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’, which landed on Disney+ in 2024 with Jude Law leading a young cast. Watts had pitched Lucasfilm an Amblin-style coming-of-age story, and the finished show ran 8 episodes, with Watts directing episodes 1 and 8. Critics were generally positive, and Ford even picked up a Children’s and Family Emmy for his work on it.

Even so, the series ended up running for only 1 season, which left plenty of fans wondering what the duo might do next. A new report suggests they already had an answer. According to an exclusive from Knight Edge Media, Watts and Ford were developing a separate, untitled ‘Star Wars’ series for Disney+, and it was being built as a western.

This was apparently no napkin sketch. The report says a full writers’ room was hired in January and kept working through August 2026, which adds up to roughly 8 months of active development. The planned series was also set to run 8 episodes, the same length as their first outing.

It also wasn’t a follow-up to the show fans already know. The report makes clear this was not a second season of ‘Skeleton Crew’, so it would have been an entirely new story rather than a return to Jod Na Nawood and the kids of At Attin.

The pitch is an intriguing one. ‘Skeleton Crew’ leaned on swashbuckling pirate adventures and the Amblin-era films of the 1980s, and Watts and Ford reportedly wanted to bring a western sensibility to the franchise in much the same way. It is the kind of genre-flavored swing that gave their first show its personality.

Honestly, the fit feels natural. George Lucas famously drew from westerns, samurai films and old adventure serials when he created ‘Star Wars’ in the first place. A dusty frontier story with blasters and bounty-hunting energy would be a return to the saga’s roots as much as a new direction.

Here’s where things get murky. It’s unclear whether Lucasfilm has put the series on the back burner or quietly abandoned it, and the studio has not commented on the report. Until it does, this one is best treated as an unconfirmed report rather than an official production.

The timing raises eyebrows, though. The writers’ room reportedly wrapped in August, and just weeks later it was reported that Watts would direct the first film in Simon Kinberg’s developing trilogy, widely referred to as ‘Star Wars: Episode X’. That film is reportedly not officially greenlit by Disney yet, but it is easy to see how a feature of that size could pull a filmmaker’s attention away from a TV project.

There’s a wider shake-up happening behind the scenes too. ‘Skeleton Crew’ was produced under previous Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, and Watts’ reported return arrives 9 months after she was succeeded by co-presidents Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan. A new leadership team naturally brings new priorities, and a western series may or may not be on the list.

The big-screen slate is filling up quickly. ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’, directed by Shawn Levy, is set to arrive on May 28, 2027, and it will be the first canon film or TV project set beyond the events of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’. With ‘Episode X’ possibly following, Lucasfilm has plenty to juggle.

Still, a full writers’ room and 8 months of work don’t simply evaporate. If Lucasfilm ever revisits the western, the material already developed could give the project a serious head start. There also hasn’t been a new live-action ‘Star Wars’ show announced in a while, so a Watts-and-Ford series could fill a very real gap.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!