Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (project)
After the "Unleashed" franchise was discontinued following Disney's decision to refresh the "Star Wars" canon in favor of producing a sequel trilogy, Sam Witwer, Marek's voice actor, revealed that Dave Filoni, the creator of the "Star Wars Rebels" animated series, considered bringing Marek back into the new canon and having him appear in that series, but ultimately decided against it because he could not find a way to do so without compromising either the new canon's quality or the character's unique distinctions.
List of Star Wars films and television series
With this new backstory in place, Lucas decided that the series would be a trilogy of trilogies, designating the first sequel "Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" in the next draft. Lawrence Kasdan, who had just completed writing "Raiders of the Lost Ark", was hired to write the next drafts, and given additional input from director Irvin Kershner. Kasdan, Kershner, and producer Gary Kurtz saw the film as a more serious and adult story, and developed the sequel from the light adventure roots of the first film.