The highly anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi series has been delayed from its original release date of May 25th 2022. It will now premiere two days later, on May 27th 2022. The first two episodes of the show will also premiere on this date, instead of one.
However, this change will only be temporary. Subsequent episodes will premiere in the original Wednesday release window, meaning that episode three will air on June 1st. This move has implications for how it interacts with other Disney+ series. It will now overlap with Ms Marvel for one week less than it would have done originally.
Disney has given no reason for this surprise announcement but released a video on Twitter with Ewan McGregor announcing the move. The prior release date of the show, May 25th, is the release of the original Star Wars in America. The show was also set to release a day before Star Wars Celebrations 2022, and will now premiere after the first day.
There are no obvious reasons for this delay, and fans will be left speculating until Disney clarifies. The two episodes premiering simultaneously are likely to reduce the overlap between Ms Marvel and Kenobi. A large number of Star Wars fans are also Marvel fans, so Disney would want to keep people subscribed as long as possible.
However, the move away from the Wednesday release for one week is odd, as for the past several months Disney has been debuting the shows from its flagship franchises on a Wednesday. This harkens back to the initial Disney+ release schedule, which used to be on a Friday.
This isn’t the first delay the show has experienced. Originally announced at D23 in 2019, the show was supposed to begin filming in August 2020. However, due to delays caused by script rewrites, filming was postponed until January 2021.
Obi-Wan Kenobi will now premiere on May 27th 2022. It stars Ewan McGregor as the titular character and will see him survive against agents of the Empire such as Hayden Christensen’s Darth Vader, Moses Ingram as the Inquisitor Reva, and Rupert Friend’s Grand Inquisitor.
Words by Kieran Burt
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.