Tony Gilroy, the visionary behind the critically acclaimed *Star Wars* series *Andor*, revealed that he had to push aggressively to secure funding for the show’s second season after being informed by Disney executives that “streaming is dead.” Speaking at the ATX Television Festival (via IndieWire), Gilroy shared how *Andor* came with a staggering production cost of $650 million—surpassing the budgets of recent *Star Wars* sequel films and nearly doubling that of *Star Wars: The Last Jedi*.
Despite these high costs and relatively lower viewership compared to the popular *The Mandalorian*, Disney ultimately greenlit Season 2. This decision followed broader concerns about the financial viability of expensive original content on Disney+, especially after several costly Marvel series underperformed both creatively and commercially.
“I mean, [for] Disney this is $650 million,” Gilroy noted, emphasizing the scale of investment while also highlighting that Disney maintained a hands-off approach regarding creative decisions. *Andor* tackled mature themes rarely seen in *Star Wars* canon, including discussions of rape, genocide, and scenes set in a brothel—content not typically associated with the franchise.
“For 24 episodes, I never took a note,” Gilroy added, though he acknowledged one notable exception: “We said ‘F*** the Empire’ in the first season, and they said, ‘Can you please not do that?’” referring to Maarva’s now-altered line in the Season 1 finale, which was softened to “Fight the Empire.”
Regarding Season 2, Gilroy recalled Disney’s hesitancy: “[They] said ‘Streaming is dead, we don't have the money we had before,’ so we fought hard about money, but they never cleaned anything up. That [freedom] comes with responsibilities.”
Every IGN Andor Review
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That responsibility translated into delivering a final product worthy of its massive budget—an expectation that Gilroy and his team clearly met. Critics widely praised *Andor* Season 2 for its depth, narrative complexity, and emotional intensity.
“Season 2 of *Andor* builds on nearly everything that worked so well about Season 1, and continues fleshing out the prequel era of *Star Wars*,“ wrote IGN in their spoiler-free review of *Andor* Season 2. “Gilroy and company manage to weave the dramatic irony inherent in a prequel series into the storytelling itself, making *Andor* Season 2 the most engaging the *Star Wars* franchise has been in a long time.”
