Ron Howard, who directed the original 1988 film, is also on the project. He was asked by Jonathan Kasdan in 2019 if he would be involved in a reboot of the film as a series for Disney+. There were first talks about it in 2005 between him, George Lucas and Warwick Davis. Production of the series started in 2020. The team began filming at Dragon Studios in Wales in March 2021. The making of “Willow” wasn’t without problems: Jon M. Chu (“Step Up to the Streets”, “Crazy Rich”) was chosen as the director – but he had to resign from the project for personal reasons before shooting began . Now Stephen Woolfenden is the director of the series, he most recently worked on the Netflix production “Fate: The Winx Saga”.
With “Willow”, the Disney group is once again trying to arouse nostalgic feelings with a new edition. The original film, which hit theaters in 1988, was hyped as a major fantasy event months before its release. Probably because the expectations of the film were so high, many viewers were disappointed with it at the time. The screenplay in particular, which was based on a story by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, once left many fantasy fans wanting. In 1989, the film was even nominated for the “Golden Raspberry” negative award for the screenplay. In the same year, “Willow” was able to collect two “Oscar” nominations – once for “Best Visual Effects” and for “Best Sound Editing”. In the 90s, “Willow” gradually gained fans on VHS and went down in (film) history as a misunderstood cult film.