Obi-Wan Kenobi release date has been moved — by two days. On Thursday, with a video featuring star Ewan McGregor, Disney and Lucasfilm announced that the next live-action Star Wars series will now premiere Friday, May 27 on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar wherever available. (Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally set to hit Disney’s streaming services on Wednesday, May 25.) But though the new Star Wars series now arrives two days later, it will come with double the fun. Yep, the first two episodes will drop on May 27. That said, future episodes will still drop on Wednesdays, which means we will be treated to three Obi-Wan Kenobi episodes in the space of six days.
Disney didn’t say why it was changing its release strategy for the upcoming Star Wars series. The American entertainment giant introduced Wednesday premieres for all its original Disney+ series following the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series Loki — that change was also announced via a video featuring its own star Tom Hiddleston — that had shifted to Wednesdays. But it’s not like it’s clashing with any other major series too. The ongoing MCU series Moon Knight wraps up May 4 — Star Wars Day, in fact — and the next one, Ms. Marvel, premiering June 8, was going to clash with Obi-Wan Kenobi regardless of the change.
If it so desired, Disney could have put Obi-Wan Kenobi on Fridays, and kept Ms. Marvel on Wednesdays, but it’s not doing that. That means for three Wednesdays in June, Star Wars and Marvel will clash with new episodes from both universes dropping at the same time. Speaking of clashes, Disney’s decision to move the Obi-Wan Kenobi premiere to May 27 means it’s now going to release opposite another big show, over on Netflix: the highly-anticipated fourth season of Stranger Things. Netflix has split Stranger Things 4 into two parts though, with the second volume not due until July 1.
Set 10 years after the events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, in which Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) faced his greatest defeat as his best friend and Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) turned to the dark side and became Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi picks up with Kenobi on Tatooine looking over a young Luke Skywalker. Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie are also part of the new Star Wars series. Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian) directs, Joby Harold (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) is showrunner and head writer.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres Friday, May 27 on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar with two episodes. One new episode will be released on the following Wednesdays until June 22.
