Lucasfilm
The showrunner of the series «Andor» planned to shoot a separate episode in the style of Horrors for the second season, dedicated to the reprogrammed imperial droid K-2SO, voiced by Alan Tudyk.
The text contains spoilers for the second season of the series «Andor».
Cassian Andor and K-2SO eventually met in the eighth episode of the second season during the Gorman Massacre, but showrunner Tony Gilroy originally had a completely different plan for the droid’s introduction, designed for a separate horror episode.
«Dan Gilroy wrote an amazing, completely self-contained episode, like a horror movie», — says Tony Gilroy in an interview EW. «It was a story about K2. They had to deliver a huge ugly tanker to Yavin, and inside was a KX-series battle droid that was hunting them. It was kind of like a monster movie with K2. It was really cool».
This story was supposed to be the ninth episode, but it was never filmed for one simple reason: budget constraints.
«We couldn’t afford it,» says Gilroy. «We were made very clear that it was out of reach. So we had to combine everything».
And this is not the first time this situation has happened to the creative team of «Andor». In the first season, Tony Gilroy’s screenwriter and brother Danny wrote a big episode about the planet Aldani, which had to be radically reworked.
«Danny has been burned twice. He wrote an episode of Aldani before the Covid pandemic with 2000 people. It was a bit like Glastonbury, a huge festival. And then, when the real filming started, we were told: “It would be good if there were 150 people there.” We were like: “Oh, my God, we’re going to have to change the whole story!”».
For context: Disney spent on «Andor» $645 million (it took $290 million to shoot the second one last year, but the final amount may be significantly higher) — it is actually the most expensive project in the universe «Star Wars». If we take into account the costs of television in general, the leaders in terms of cost are still «Rings of power» from Prime Video with a first season budget of $465 million. Although with the canceled episodes, it seems that «Andor» had every chance to overtake it.
In the interview, Gilroy also acknowledges how important the appearance of K-2SO in «Andor» was, even though it happened a little later than fans (and Tudyk himself) expected.
«I told Alan about it in the beginning, and eventually everyone agreed: “Look, we’ll wait, but it’s worth it. And when that moment comes — we’ll really make an event out of it. It’ll make sense and it’ll feel natural,”», Gilroy explains.
At the moment, «Andor» can rightfully be considered the most successful «Star Wars» series (although the competition is not great, it should be noted) andthe highest rated franchise projectwhich started with a nearly perfect 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, the eighth and ninth episodes scored a record 9.8/10 on IMDb.
Earlier, Gilroy admitted that I didn’t want to shoot the series and hoped that COVID would halt production, but later praised the project as the best of his career. He also claimed that success «Andor» will make Disney make a horror or sitcom about «Star Wars».