Lucasfilm has officially confirmed the next Star Wars animated series is Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which will premiere on Disney+ in 2021 and will feature the group called the Bad Batch, spinning out of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The final season of The Clone Wars was a tremendous success for Disney, receiving popular and critical acclaim.

The Clone Wars season 7 ended in May, and ever since there have been rumors Lucasfilm was working on a spinoff. This was expected to feature the so-called "Bad Batch," a group of defective clones who had mutations the Republic deemed "desirable." Otherwise known as Clone Force 99, the Bad Batch are essentially the Clone Army's superheroes, with each member possessing abilities far beyond the normal Clone Trooper. They tend to be assigned some of the highest-risk missions, and have won praise and adulation from their "brothers."

Related: Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Bad Batch Explained

Today, Lucasfilm has confirmed the Disney+ streaming service has ordered a new animated series called Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which is expected to stream in 2021. Lucasfilm Animation provided an official synopsis, promising a unique new vision of the Dark Times:

"The series follows the elite and experimental clones of the Bad Batch (first introduced in “The Clone Wars) as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War. Members of Bad Batch - a unique squad of clones who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army - each possess a singular exceptional skill which makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew. In the post-Clone War era, they will take on daring mercenary missions as they struggle to stay afloat and find new purpose."

Star Wars Bad Batch Logo

Agnes Chu, senior vice president of content at Disney+, made it clear this is a response to the success of Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 7. "Giving new and existing fans the final chapter of ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ has been our honor at Disney+," she observed, "and we are overjoyed by the global response to this landmark series. While the Clone Wars may have come to its conclusion, our partnership with the groundbreaking storytellers and artists at Lucasfilm Animation is only beginning. We are thrilled to bring Dave Filoni’s vision to life through the next adventures of the Bad Batch." Her comment clearly raises the possibility that further animated shows could be in the works, perhaps even a Star Wars Rebels spinoff as well. The latest Star Wars novel, Alexander Freed's Shadow Fall, subtly teased Rebels' last, biggest unresolved mystery.

The success of any streaming service depends upon the quality of its original content, and Star Wars has become the cornerstone of Disney+. The first season of The Mandalorian released as part of Disney+'s launch, and became the most in-demand digital TV series in December 2019. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has since profoundly affected production of other Disney+ films and TV shows, and consequently the House of Mouse has struggled to match The Mandalorian's success. Animation houses have been able to adapt with a little more ease, though, because the animators have simply moved to working online. There have still been some issues with upload speeds, but by now companies have gotten used to that, and they've started factoring that into their production schedules. As such, Disney+ can move forward with Star Wars: The Bad Batch in order to get the animated show read for the planned 2021 release.

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Source: Disney+