‘Willow’ Will Be Revived As Disney Plus Series With Warwick Davis
Yet another favorite of yesteryear is getting a new lease on life in the present. Disney has announced that Willow, the cult favorite 1988 movie starring Warwick Davis as the title character, will be revived as a TV series on their Disney+ streaming platform. Davis will reprise his role, and Ron Howard, who directed Willow, is involved as an executive producer.
Here was Davis’ comment on the news, via the press release:
So many fans have asked me over the years if Willow will make a return, and now I’m thrilled to tell them that he will indeed. Many have told me they grew up with ‘Willow’ and that the film has influenced how they view heroism in our own world. If Willow Ufgood can represent the heroic potential in all of us, then he is a character I am extremely honored to reprise.
Howard said that the new Willow “isn’t a nostalgic throw-back, it’s a creative lean-forward.” The pilot for the new show will be directed by Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights’ Jon M. Chu. Solo: A Star Wars Story’s Jonathan Kasdan wrote the pilot.
Released between eras of the Star Wars saga, the fantasy epic Willow represented one of Lucasfilm’s attempts to branch out beyond sci-fi content; it basically represents the same in 2020, as it’s the company’s first non-Star Wars production in five years. The release says that it “takes place years after the events of the original Willow” and “introduces all-new characters to the enchanted realm of fairy queens and two-headed Eborsisk monsters, and welcomes back its namesake hero, Willow Ufgood, performed once again by the unmatchable Warwick Davis.”
A new Willow marks yet another nostalgic favorite from the past getting an update for the 2020s. Although Willow wasn’t a blockbuster on the scale of Star Wars in 1988, it did reasonably well at the box office and then found an appreciative fanbase on home video. But if Lucasfilm remakes Howard the Duck next, then I’ll be really surprised.
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