The upcoming Disney Plus series Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi has had its premiere date pushed back by a few days. An official announcement from Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Ewan McGregor revealed that while the premiere date has been pushed back, the first two episodes of the limited series will now premiere on the same day.
The 40-second video opens with McGregor thanking Star Wars fans for all their excitement and support for the upcoming Disney Plus series. He then reveals that he has some news: the premiere date for the limited series has been moved from Wednesday, May 25th, to Friday, May 27th.
McGregor also reveals that the first two episodes will now premiere on the same day. The video ends with some footage from the previously released trailer, set to John Williams's classic score, "Duel Of The Fates." Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi stars McGregor as the exiled Jedi Master who is tasked with protecting a young Luke Skywalker from the forces of the Evil Empire. Last month, Disney released the first trailer for the series, which showed McGregor in the role for the first time since 2003's Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The series is set between the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, during a time when the Galactic Empire had full control over the galaxy. McGregor's prequel co-star Hayden Christensen is also set to reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Christensen did not appear in the trailer, but Disney did release an ominous first image of the Sith Lord.
Previously, Disney Plus released new episodes of their original series every Friday until they switched to Wednesdays after the premiere of Marvel Studios Loki. Since then the streaming service has stuck to Wednesday release dates for its original programming, including Marvel Studios Hawkeye and The Book of Boba Fett. McGregor's announcement doesn't clarify whether the remaining episodes will be released every Friday after the two-episode premiere. If the series goes back to its Wednesday release date for future episodes it could overlap with Marvel Studios' upcoming Ms.Marvel, which premieres on June 8th.
Changing the premiere date to the 27th also puts Disney Plus in direct competition with one of their major streaming rivals: Netflix. Part 1 of Stranger Things season 4 is also set to premiere on May 27th, but in the usual Netflix fashion, all episodes of season 4 part 1 will be available that day. As for the two-episode premiere of Obi-Wan Kenobi, that could be a purely creative decision. Fans won't really be able to speculate too much on this until we see the episodes, but it's possible that upon further review, the folks at Disney Plus and Lucasfilm determined that the first episode just didn't pack enough for the big premiere they're hoping for. At this point, most fans are used to premiere dates being pushed back, so delaying the debut by few days shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres exclusively on Disney Plus on May 27th, 2022.
Source: Star Wars | Twitter