Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy recently revealed that work on Season 2 will begin before the end of 2022.
Gilroy discussed the Star Wars series' second season at the Disney+ Television Critics Association virtual press day. "We are covering one year in our first 12 episodes that we’ve completed, in fact, we’re finishing our final mix on [Episode] 12 tomorrow," he said. "We are going to do another 12 episodes starting in November and the organizing principle for shooting is that we do blocks of three, so last year we were looking at the difficulty of doing five years, which seemed like it would take us the next 30 years."
The showrunner's comments track with previous reports that Andor is targeting a late 2022 production window for Season 2. These same reports also suggested that principal photography on the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel series' second season will take place at Elstree Studios and not Pinewood Studios, like Season 1, with principal photography schedule to last 18 months. Neither Disney+ nor Lucasfilm have publicly commented on the location or length of the Andor Season 2 shoot, however.
What to Expect From Andor Season 1
It's also unclear whether Andor's next 12-episode block will continue to eschew the revolutionary visual effects technology used by other Star Wars shows The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Gilroy recently confirmed that Andor Season 1 didn't make use of the Volume, a special soundstage surrounded by an ultra-HD video wall used to display digital effects and virtual environments behind actors and partly-built practical sets. Instead, the series relied on a more conventional combination of location shooting and sets extended via green screen technology.
Andor's emphasis on location shooting is something it has in common with Rogue One, which shot scenes in England, Iceland, the Maldives and Jordan. The two productions also differ in many ways, though, most notably through the absence of several key Rogue One cast members, including breakout character K-2SO. Gilroy recently spoke about why the sarcastic ex-Imperial droid won't appear in Andor Season 1, explaining that the five-year gap between the show and the movie that inspired ruled out K-2SO's involvement for now.
"From a storytelling point of view, there are multiple reasons," he said. "I would say, 'Wait and see.' It's a story we are eager to tell. It's difficult to carry an Imperial droid around with you and not draw all kinds of attention. It's a difficult piece of luggage. When we do it, we'll do it in a spectacular fashion as opposed to presenting it and ignoring it, or presenting it or hiding it, or the bad versions we would have been forced to do."
Andor premieres Wednesday, Sept. 21 on Disney+.
Source: Television Critics Association