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‘Star Wars’ Series From ‘Russian Doll’ Co-Creator Leslye Headland in the Works at Disney Plus

A new “Star Wars” series is in the works at Disney Plus, Variety has learned from sources. The series hails from Leslye Headland, the co-creator, showrunner, and executive producer of the critically-acclaimed Netflix series “Russian Doll.”

Details of the exact plot of the series are being kept under wraps, but sources say it will be a female-centric series that takes place in a different part of the “Star Wars” timeline than other projects. Headland is said to be attached to write and serve as showrunner on the series, with the show currently staffing.

Reps for Disney and Headland did not immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment.

Not a lot of info to work here with. I dunno if you guys have seen Russian Doll or not, but it was amazing. I hope this is as good as The Mandalorian was.

I heard about this via a WorldClassBSers episode last night and whilst I try to not take someone else's opinion, adopt it as my own and forever have it influence my view of something; their opinion does run pretty close to mine.

They did run an interview clip with Leslye Headland that had me slowly shaking my head and rolling my eyes... can't we just have the best writer for the job, writing the best story with the best cast that they can manage? Why do we have someone that wants to tick diversity boxes? Disney...

Added bonus: Apparently, she managed a one year stint as Epstein's PA... hopefully she was head whistle blower or witness for the prosecution there...

Not sure an interest in diversity and being the best write for the job are mutually exclusive?

I guess that depends on how one defines the job.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure an interest in diversity and being the best write for the job are mutually exclusive?

Oh absolutely not mutually exclusive! Diversity: good. Very good. An interest in it is a good thing, but deciding that you need a person of a particular gender/sexual orientation/colour of skin before weighing up their ability to do the job is discrimination. Of course, there is a history (and still is) of things being scewed one way, but I'd like to see a world where everyone has a chance purely based on merit and ability.

I had this image of Natasha Lyonne headlining the thing. Which seems like an idea so terrible that it loops all the way back around to being kinda great.

I liked her in Russian Doll, of course.

 Chillreaper wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure an interest in diversity and being the best write for the job are mutually exclusive?

Oh absolutely not mutually exclusive! Diversity: good. Very good. An interest in it is a good thing, but deciding that you need a person of a particular gender/sexual orientation/colour of skin before weighing up their ability to do the job is discrimination. Of course, there is a history (and still is) of things being scewed one way, but I'd like to see a world where everyone has a chance purely based on merit and ability.

I want to write a series starring a female character, who is the best female actor for the job?

That was easy, 100% merit based. cool cool cool cool cool.

I know this is hard for some people to fathom, but diversity casting doesn't mean that they are bumping a better actor for someone else based on demographics, it means that they wrote a character that happens to have some demographic traits, and then they pick the best person for the job that fits that type.

Take Rey for example - written as a female character because that is the character that interested the writers, directors, and production crew, etc. She is decried as a "diversity hire" because she is female, but Daisy Ridley was the best actor for the job - they auditioned tons of women for the role, including quite a few high profile women of color, and Daisy beat out all of them.

TL;DR - your fears of the collapse of meritocracy are completely unfounded.

Haha, yes we would have to have a meritocracy in the first place to be concerned about it collapsing.

shhhh don't let the cat out of the bag Manchu, some people just aren't ready for the truth yet.

Want an example of diversity working really well and providing a great structure to a story?




the all new all differant x-men created for Giant Size X-men #1.

they took a team that consisted of 4 white american dudes and 1 white american woman. and created a team that consisted of..

1 white American dude. 1 white Canadian, 1 Russian guy (remember this was during the cold war) 1 german guy who literally looked like the devil, a black african woman, a native american guy (who swiftly got killed off..) and a white american woman.

And this team became one of the best selling comic books of it's time

chaos0xomega wrote:

I want to write a series starring a female character, who is the best female actor for the job?

That was easy, 100% merit based. cool cool cool cool cool.

There is a bit of a difference between "We have female character, who is the best female actor for the job?" and "We need to hire a new writer, but he cant be white"

dyndraig wrote:

There is a bit of a difference between "We have female character, who is the best female actor for the job?" and "We need to hire a new writer, but he cant be white"

There's also a bit of difference between discrimination and a desire to showcase underrepresented minorities...

BrianDavion wrote:

Want an example of diversity working really well and providing a great structure to a story?




the all new all differant x-men created for Giant Size X-men #1.

they took a team that consisted of 4 white american dudes and 1 white american woman. and created a team that consisted of..

1 white American dude. 1 white Canadian, 1 Russian guy (remember this was during the cold war) 1 german guy who literally looked like the devil, a black african woman, a native american guy (who swiftly got killed off..) and a white american woman.

And this team became one of the best selling comic books of it's time

You left off the arrogant Asian dude. And the charming Irishman who also got stereotyped (flaming red hair with a mythical creatures wail from Irish lore).

 insaniak wrote:

dyndraig wrote:

There is a bit of a difference between "We have female character, who is the best female actor for the job?" and "We need to hire a new writer, but he cant be white"

There's also a bit of difference between discrimination and a desire to showcase underrepresented minorities...

Erm, not if your chosen method for doing so is to discriminate, which is what the latter example constitutes.

That said, yeah, creating a female character is not discrimination. The real question I have with this show given who's involved is just, why? I mean, given who's involved, we can guess why especially given the way the show came to light, but in general: why do some creatives keep insisting on approaching fictional settings as if they're all the same and they all have to reflect modern sociopolitical issues?

Star Wars is about adventures from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. The person having those adventures can be black or white, male or female, giant lizard-person or tiny bat-person, but the point is exactly the opposite of what I suppose you'd refer to as "activist" creatives desire; escapism, as opposed to "being relevant to our time blah blah". Transposing modern gender politics issues directly into the Star Wars setting makes no sense, because Star Wars - especially after the Disney buyout - doesn't experience modern gender politics issues. If you want to be a kickass space princess with a laser gun, you can, if you want to be a badass lady fighter pilot, you can, if you want to be a scruffy and cantankerous middle-aged female mechanic on a backwater, you can, if you want to be a severe jackbooted military governess who crushes Rebels, you can.

Now, it's possible this show(assuming the ploy works and it actually manages to get put into production) ends up literally just being a Star Wars story with a female lead character and that's it, in which case, cool, let's hope it's a good Star Wars story. But if we're being real, the chances of that are functionally zero, it's going to be a polemic with a Star Wars skimcoat over the top.

Which is doubly bizarre to my mind, since the very fact that Star Wars is so intentionally distant from our present day reality makes it a perfect candidate for "representation"(in the superficial sense the term is most often used) - make a compelling Star Wars narrative first, then cast it entirely blind. Allow literally anyone of any age, gender, sex, race, creed or whatever to audition for whatever roles they like, because in Star Wars it doesn't matter, what matters is the style and tone of the narrative itself. Certain people at Lucasfilm have and are blowing huge amounts of goodwill and brand capital trying to turn Star Wars into something it's not, when they could have been doing much more to achieve their supposed objective of "showcasing underrepresented minorities" by just adopting an approach that works with what the IP already allows them to do and dropping the performative element that lets them feel like they're "striking a blow" and all that guff.

dyndraig wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

I want to write a series starring a female character, who is the best female actor for the job?

That was easy, 100% merit based. cool cool cool cool cool.

There is a bit of a difference between "We have female character, who is the best female actor for the job?" and "We need to hire a new writer, but he cant be white"

There is little difference between those two concepts. In both case you're showcasing talent from outside of your traditional and well-established talent pool. In the latter case, you are also recognizing that being white doesn't automatically make someone the best writer for the job, and that there is an intrinsic bias which gives the false perception that a white writer is superior to a writer of color, which has resulted in a gross over-representation of white writers in the industry. By disqualifying white applicants you are preventing that inherent bias from impacting your judgement, thereby allowing you to identify a more suitable candidate whilst also recognizing that white writers are already over-represented in the industry and not starved for opportunity like the POC writers out there and will have other options available to them.

Star Wars is about adventures from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. The person having those adventures can be black or white, male or female, giant lizard-person or tiny bat-person, but the point is exactly the opposite of what I suppose you'd refer to as "activist" creatives desire; escapism, as opposed to "being relevant to our time blah blah".

Political commentary has been inherent to the Star Wars franchise since the first film, George Lucas baked it into the franchises DNA. His entire backstory for the setting was basically that a Richard Nixon-esque figure (Palpatine) overthrew a Constitutional Democracy and made himself President-for-life (Emperor), and the Rebel Alliance was basically the space-liberals rebelling against the new order founded by the space-conservatives. To say nothing of how the Vietnam war influenced the story and the setting (hint: the Rebel Alliance has more in common with the VietCong than it does with the US military).

Transposing modern gender politics issues directly into the Star Wars setting makes no sense, because Star Wars - especially after the Disney buyout - doesn't experience modern gender politics issues.

The reason Star Wars doesn't (in your mind) have modern gender politics issues is precisely because it goes out of its way to allow female and minority characters to do all the things you just listed. Modern gender politics issues are inherent to Star Wars - Princess Leias character in the Original Trilogy was written the way she is precisely because of gender politics. It wasn't an accident that shes the HBIC with a laser gun instead of a damsel in distress.

Which is doubly bizarre to my mind

Its probably bizarre to you because you seem to have rather missed a lot of the subtext of Star Wars.

Allow literally anyone of any age, gender, sex, race, creed or whatever to audition for whatever roles they like, because in Star Wars it doesn't matter, what matters is the style and tone of the narrative itself.

Lets be real, you would still be complaining about it being political the moment anyone that isn't a white male was involved at any point in this process, just like how you are now. You ever consider that Leslye Headland was picked to write the show because *she* happens to be the best writer out there? That the production team at Lucasfilm watched Russian Doll and said "Whoever this is is an enormous talent and we should get them writing on Star Wars ASAP" not because she is a woman, but because she's good at what she does?

No, of course not.

For someone who accuses other of missing things, you seem to be lacking a bit in the observational stakes yourself there chummo - unless you care to point to the part of my post where I asserted Leslye Headland was picked to write the show only because she's a woman?

If you create a setting that purposefully sets out not to reflect the issues in a society that modern gender politics relates to, you cannot also make stories in the setting that are about those gender politics, because your objective was to make a world where they don't exist.

If your setting is one where a person's race or sex or gender don't matter in the ways that it does in reality, then you can't tell a story in that setting that is based on someone's race or sex or gender mattering in the ways that it does in reality. By your own design.

Telling a "female-centric" story in the way that the originators of this show doubtless intend doesn't work in Star Wars any more than trying to shoehorn in "both sides are actually bad if you think about it" criticism of the military-industrial-complex did in TLJ, because the female perspective and experience in Star Wars is not different from the male perspective and experience in Star Wars in the same ways as it is IRL due to modern sociopolitical concerns, indeed there's no evidence on screen that they're different at all or that there's any reason for them to be.

Of course, there's no actual point in me responding, since you'll just make assumptions about my motivations and ignore whatever parts of what I write don't fit your narrative, because you're evidently only capable of conceiving of this subject as a front in the Culture War where anyone who disagrees with you to any extent whatsoever is on the other side.

Wish they would stop announcing all these tv shows with such-and-such and whats-his-name attached to direct / dictate / usurp / destroy the project.

Instead of flaunting "Star Wars movies every two years for the next decade", "Game of Thrones", "Marvel MCU" and "Russian Doll" at us...how about something that actually means something to us STAR WARS fans?

I honestly do not care if the MCU show runner wants to direct a SW movie. I just need to know what LucasFilm is working on at the moment and what we can look forward to. The High Republic is set before The Phantom Menace? Thats great, I'm in! A woman-orientated tv show? Don't care! Tells me nothing whatsoever! Maybe if they name-dropped Mara Jade we might actually care.

Different time eh? Think it’ll be in the distant past, like KotOR?

It's been 'reported' on a few sites that the announcement may have jumped the gun a little bit - Disney Executives Reportedly 'Livid' Over Leslye Headland's Female-Centric Star Wars Series - Epicstream.

Yeah, there appears to be the odd conspiracy theory regarding that Vanity article.

What's true? What isn't? Will we ever find out?

Although I did find the video clip of Leslye begging KK for a chance to do Star Wars smirk inducing.

How's that Rian Johnson trilogy going?

 Yodhrin wrote:
For someone who accuses other of missing things, you seem to be lacking a bit in the observational stakes yourself there chummo - unless you care to point to the part of my post where I asserted Leslye Headland was picked to write the show only because she's a woman?

That certainly seems to be the implication of your opening paragraph:

The real question I have with this show given who's involved is just, why? I mean, given who's involved, we can guess why especially given the way the show came to light..

I can't possibly fathom what else you might have been referring to here.

If you create a setting that purposefully sets out not to reflect the issues in a society that modern gender politics relates to, you cannot also make stories in the setting that are about those gender politics, because your objective was to make a world where they don't exist.

If your setting is one where a person's race or sex or gender don't matter in the ways that it does in reality, then you can't tell a story in that setting that is based on someone's race or sex or gender mattering in the ways that it does in reality. By your own design.

Thats an incredibly obtuse argument considering Star Wars has in fact been interrogating and challenging those exact issues from its inception while still reflecting a world in which those politics don't exist - which is itself misconstrued as there have been numerous examples of worlds and societies within the setting, both pre and post Disney, in which things like gender and race played a role - especially once you consider that officially the majority of Near-Human species in the setting are in fact genetically descended from humans (which in turn makes the (overwhelmongly white) Empires xenophobia and enslavement of these "subhumans" a social commentary on real life - imagine that, to say nothing of the fact that the various near-Humans are all subject to various socio-economic pressures and stereotyped in different ways, like Twi'leks generally being impoverished and forced into thievery or prostitution and often sold as sex slaves, etc -especially females). But beyond that you have matriarchal societies like the Nightsisters and the Hapans (let alone the fact that the Rebel Alliance is lead by women and fighting an evil empire lead by men...), and patriarchal ones like thr Ssi-ruu. Hell, Leias subplot in Return of the Jedi was basically one of female empowerment and women overthrowing the patriarchy, something that would not be possible if your assertion about Star Wars being post-identity were true.

doesn't work in Star Wars any more than trying to shoehorn in "both sides are actually bad if you think about it" criticism of the military-industrial-complex did in TLJ

And yet George Lucas and Dave Filoni communicated pretty much that same exact message about both sides being bad in The Clone Wars.

because you're evidently only capable of conceiving of this subject as a front in the Culture War where anyone who disagrees with you to any extent whatsoever is on the other side.

OR -hear me out- you're just wrong, and completely overlooking and ignoring all the many and myriad examples of Star Wars injecting itself into sociopolitical issues over the past 40 years

Saw some interesting videos about how and why this all was "leaked". Not very surprising. The panel with the supposed creator is...hugely painful to watch. This'll be a hard pass.

 Elbows wrote:
Saw some interesting videos about how and why this all was "leaked". Not very surprising. The panel with the supposed creator is...hugely painful to watch. This'll be a hard pass.

yeah proably. thing is I think we're not the intended audiance here, my bet is they're hoping to do a bit of a shot gun approuch to differant types of shows to try and create a franchise where "no matter who and what you are there is something in this franchise for you"

which.... is proably an aweful idea that will dilute the franchise. but we'll see.

Let’s not forget that at the heart of the plot of Star Wars there is an actual political conflict — and it is actually pretty conservative! The Rebels are reactionaries rather than radicals. They are fighting against the New Order to reestablish the status quo. The plot is also metanarratively conservative: the values of the Rebels are just run of the mill American middle class platitudes (including even a patina of religion). The OT certainly doesn’t ask anyone watching to critically reevaluate the attitudes they brought with them into the theater. As for Princess Leia, the notion that her character was somehow meant to challenge gender roles is cynical historical revisionism for the sake of retroactive marketing. What Leia tells us is that, in 1977, the public at large was already prepared to accept a brassy young woman as a leader, as a point of light irony in a fantasy movie. Of course the whole thing is a purposely conventional fairy tale designed with the hopes of making a profit, not least of all by selling merchandise.

The PT isn’t any better, especially in being a capitalist bonanza (it clearly only exists at all because there was money to be made; there’s certainly not a shred of artistic ambition). The prequel politics are at their very best juvenile in the most eye rolling sense, exemplified by Anakin’s edgelord declaration that “from my point of view, the Jedi are evil.” That’s to say nothing of the absurd notion of electing a 14-year-old child as monarch. Is there any point of even trying to analyze the Disney trilogy, considering it’s an incoherent mess? All we can say is, once again, the only point was making money.

Star Wars can be used as a vehicle for feminism or whatever but there’s nothing inherently leftist or even left-leaning about it.

Don't forget that in the list of priorities on that new SW multi-media story idea they're doing "Diversity" appeared on the board three fething times.

 Manchu wrote:
Let’s not forget that at the heart of the plot of Star Wars there is an actual political conflict — and it is actually pretty conservative! The Rebels are reactionaries rather than radicals. They are fighting against the New Order to reestablish the status quo. The plot is also metanarratively conservative: the values of the Rebels are just run of the mill American middle class platitudes (including even a patina of religion). The OT certainly doesn’t ask anyone watching to critically reevaluate the attitudes they brought with them into the theater. As for Princess Leia, the notion that her character was somehow meant to challenge gender roles is cynical historical revisionism for the sake of retroactive marketing. What Leia tells us is that, in 1977, the public at large was already prepared to accept a brassy young woman as a leader, as a point of light irony in a fantasy movie. Of course the whole thing is a purposely conventional fairy tale designed with the hopes of making a profit, not least of all by selling merchandise.

The PT isn’t any better, especially in being a capitalist bonanza (it clearly only exists at all because there was money to be made; there’s certainly not a shred of artistic ambition). The prequel politics are at their very best juvenile in the most eye rolling sense, exemplified by Anakin’s edgelord declaration that “from my point of view, the Jedi are evil.” That’s to say nothing of the absurd notion of electing a 14-year-old child as monarch. Is there any point of even trying to analyze the Disney trilogy, considering it’s an incoherent mess? All we can say is, once again, the only point was making money.

Star Wars can be used as a vehicle for feminism or whatever but there’s nothing inherently leftist or even left-leaning about it.

I mean, theres interviews going back almost 40 years of George Lucas saying that the Galactic Empire is inspired by the US and how Star Wars was an anti-war protest against Vietnam, etc., and theres even references in production notes of the OT to the same, but I guess George Lucas is a liar.

Also, the patina of religion you're referring to is actually buddhism more than it is christianity, and the "reactionaries" are trying restore the status quo ante in the same way that that the Vietcong and Vietnminh were trying to restore Vietnamese independence.

I agree with you that the films don't necessarily force you to think all that critically about them, but I think that says a lot more about George Lucas intellectual and artistic aptitude than it does about intent about the films. Lets not forget that this is the guy who seriously suggested "Darth Icky" as a name for Starkiller in the Force Unleashed.

I dunno what to tell you, if SW was supposed to be an anti US allegory for the Vietnam War then it totally, absolutely, unequivocally failed at that.

 Manchu wrote:
I dunno what to tell you, if SW was supposed to be an anti US allegory for the Vietnam War then it totally, absolutely, unequivocally failed at that.

If people can't understand the deep themes of the Vietcong destroying the US's giant laser moon as it rolled around Hanoi, then the're just watching movies wrong.

Oh! Of course! It’s so obvious now!