DISNEY PLUS HONOURS STAR WARS ARTISTRY FROM MAY THE FOURTH

Streaming video-on-demand provider Disney Plus will honour the legacy of founder George Lucas’ Star Wars universe from May 4th with a series of conceptual art banners on their dedicated page sites.

Last Friday, the home page carousel art was updated for the first time since the VOD giant launched in November. The iconic ‘droids in the desert’ image, one of several visions crafted in 1975 by the late, great illustrator Ralph Macquarrie, topped the welcome screen. From May 4th, aka ‘Star Wars Day’, the collection will expand to include works from Jason Palmer, Doug Chiang and Seth Engström, along with several others who have contributed to the design aesthetic of the blockbuster series over five decades.

The special artwork will be available for all titles in the core ‘Skywalker Saga’, including A New Hope (1977); The Empire Strikes Back (1980); Return of the Jedi (1983); The Phantom Menace (1999); Attack of the Clones (2002); Revenge of the Sith (2005); The Force Awakens (2015); and The Last Jedi (2017). The ambitious undertaking will also coincide with the streaming platform’s fast-tracked May 4 launch of Rian Johnson’s The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

Concept art headers have also been prepared for the spin-off features, Rogue One (2016) and Solo (2018) and the animated stories, Star Wars: Rebels and Star Wars: Resistance. Disney Plus’ original Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, will get a concept art makeover as well as its own eight-part docuseries, Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian. Overseen by director/producer Jon Favreau, who will host round-table talks with key contributors, the series will reveal never-before-seen footage and insider production stories.

The ‘Star Wars Day’ Concept Art promotion is likely to further boost subscriber numbers for Disney Plus, which has seen a three-fold increase in sign-ups over the course of the global Coronavirus lockdown. The corporation’s international subscriber level is close to 65 million users as of the provider’s latest release, including an astonishing 8 million new accounts in India over the course of 24 hours (linked to its broadcast deal with local platform Hotstar).