Dave Filoni has worn many hats in the Star Wars universe–writer, director, showrunner–but his latest title may be his most consequential yet.
Newly installed as co-President of Lucasfilm alongside Lynwen Brennan, Filoni now sits at the very top of the franchise he has spent decades helping to build. And as Ahsoka Season 2 wraps up in post-production, he’s already fielding questions about whether there will be a third. His answer? Cautiously optimistic, but firmly rooted in the present.
“Like a Jedi, you must keep your mind in the here and now,” Filoni told Screen Rant‘s Ash Crossan, deflecting speculation about the show’s long-term future with characteristic calm. He acknowledged knowing where the story is ultimately headed–and expressed confidence that it would get there–but stopped short of any formal commitment to a Season 3, pointing instead to the packed slate currently in front of him, including the animated Maul–Shadow Lord and the theatrical release of The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026).
That film, directed by Jon Favreau, hits cinemas on May 22, 2026, and represents one of two movies Lucasfilm has fast-tracked outside its previously announced slate. The other, Star Wars: Starfighter, from director Shawn Levy, follows in May 2027. Both projects have taken priority at the studio, and their emergence has cast something of a shadow over the broader Mando-Verse roadmap–a roadmap that once included a crossover movie championed by outgoing President Kathleen Kennedy at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London.
That movie’s fate, along with those of Mandalorian Season 4 and Ahsoka Season 3, now appears genuinely uncertain. Industry reports have painted a picture of a franchise in flux, with Filoni and Brennan tasked with steering a course through competing priorities, shifting timelines, and a fanbase hungry for clarity.
What is clear is that Ahsoka Season 2 is happening–and that it arrives carrying some considerable baggage. The most painful of these is the absence of Ray Stevenson, the beloved actor who brought mercenary-turned-mystic Baylan Skoll to life in Season 1 before his death in 2023. Rory McCann has since been cast to carry the role forward. But Stevenson is not the only Season 1 presence missing from the upcoming episodes.
Claudia Black, who gave voice and presence to Nightsister Klothow–one of the more memorable figures in Thrawn’s orbit during the first season–has confirmed she will not be part of Season 2. The reason, she explained, was straightforwardly practical: the production relocated to London, and the economics simply didn’t work out. Whether Klothow will be recast or quietly sidelined remains to be seen; Lucasfilm has made no announcement either way, though fan sentiment leans heavily toward the former given the character’s narrative importance.
That brings the total number of confirmed recasts touching the Ahsoka world to three–because Filoni has now acknowledged another. The Inquisitor known as Marrok, who clashed memorably with Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) in Season 1–where he was played in a physically demanding, largely silent capacity by Paul Darnell–has resurfaced in Maul–Shadow Lord, voiced by A. J. LoCascio.
Best known to genre fans as the voice of Gambit in the widely praised X-Men ’97, LoCascio brings a more dialogue-driven interpretation to the character, whose role in the animated series proved substantially larger than his live-action introduction suggested.
Maul–Shadow Lord itself has been something of a phenomenon. The ten-episode series–which charts Maul’s doomed campaign against the Shadow Collective, only for Darth Vader’s Inquisitorius to come sweeping in–wrapped its finale to a rapturous reception, earning a place among the most celebrated projects in Lucasfilm’s recent output. It also deepened the connective tissue between the animated and live-action corners of the Star Wars universe considerably, with Marrok’s expanded role serving as one of its more intriguing threads.
For her part, Rosario Dawson has offered a glimpse of what Season 2 holds for Ahsoka herself, suggesting audiences can expect a character somewhat unburdened compared to the one they last saw. The trials of the World Between Worlds and a long-awaited reckoning with Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) having taken their toll in Season 1, Dawson hints that Ahsoka enters her next chapter with something closer to the brightness of her younger Clone Wars self.
Given the storm gathering around Thrawn’s return and the franchise’s uncertain near-future, that lightness may be exactly what both the character and the audience need.
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