If Star Wars Celebration Japan is any indication, it looks like we’re about to be spoiled by animated Star Wars projects in the near future. Athena Portillo, Vice President of Animation at Lucasfilm, sat down for an exclusive interview with IGN to discuss two of the most exciting shows they have in the pipeline right now: the just-announced Tales of the Underworld and Maul: Shadow Lord series.
Portillo was particularly excited during our chat about working with Sam Witwer, the longstanding voice for Darth Maul in the Star Wars animated projects, on developing Maul: Shadow Lord. “Sam was involved a lot with the character depth and the lore, along with our head writer and supervising director,” she explained to IGN during Star Wars Celebration Japan. “He’s involved with the character depth of Maul, because both him and [Lucasfilm CCO Dave] Filoni created the character together in animation, and you know, he gets to read the scripts, he gets to watch the whip reels, he gets to watch the pool color. He provides input.”
This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen Maul — but it is the first time we’re getting to truly delve into the story of this seemingly eternal villain. “My joke for the Lucasfilm Animation team is it’s kind of like Michael Meyers or like Jason Voorhees. Like you keep killing them, but they keep coming back. There is that threat that’s there, right? I mean, it’s Star Wars, right? So Darth Maul has passed away so many times, but he does keep coming back. …We are diving into Maul’s history and we get to jump into that in the stories.”
Portillo made it a point to really highlight all of the elements of production that stand out as major enhancements to how Lucasfilm Animation was producing work previously, particularly the “the animation, the lighting, the effects, the matte paintings, the lighting concepts, the assets.”
“When Filoni kicked off the Maul show, which was after Covid, people were getting back into the swing of coming back to work, but he said, ‘You all need to pull yourself out of complacency, you all need to pull yourself out of your comfort level. Being uncomfortable is a good feeling, and it leads you to greater things. So, create something that is an upgrade of what we’re used to doing,’ both in the animation style such as the body mechanics, facial animation, we updated all of our body rigs, and then all the lighting, everything,” she explained. “When Filoni watched one of our episodes last week, his comment was, ‘Wow, you guys, you are actually creating cinema’. He was proud of what Lucasfilm Animation has achieved with this show.”
Portillo added, “All of it is an upgrade from what we’ve done, and even from the Bad Batch, even from Tales of the Underworld, it’s an upgrade, and we just completed Tales of the Underworld. We’re releasing Maul in 2026, but we’re still working on it.”
Tales of the Underworld, which will follow Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane as they navigate their respective experiences as villains, will consist of three episodes for each character for a total of six. Ventress’ three shorts will specifically center around “the fact that Mother Talzin gave her an opportunity to come back,” according to Portillo, “so Ventress meets the boy you see in the first short, and it becomes two Jedi on the run, and you’ll see like a relationship story created in the three shorts.”
Interestingly enough, Ventress has been considered by some fans to have died and been reborn, based on the storyline presented in the Dark Disciple novel. However, it was generally up in the air as far as whether or not that was canon — but Portillo confirms that Tales of the Underworld is in fact picking up where that storyline left off. “Yeah. My favorite part of that is the whole Quinlan Vos and Ventress connection. When the fans saw that, and when he said, ‘I will always love you,’ it blew everyone away,” she revealed. “I think fans want to see that, you know, especially since Jedi are not supposed to get involved, but there’s always that love story. There was the Obi-Wan Kenobi and Satine story, and obviously Padme and Anakin, and now Ventress and Quinlan Vos. I love those types of stories.”
She also noted that Ventress is navigating how to deal with her past in a big way, particularly in the way she is spending her time when we first meet her in the series. “Sometimes after they’ve gone through a lot, they start to rethink their path, and which way they want to go. Some choose a path of exile in a way, where they don’t want to be a part of what their history has been. And then others turn to the dark side, as we’ve seen,” Portillo said. “So, with her story, it’s going to be more of, you know, let’s just say sometimes people come into your life for a reason to make you a better person, and the character that she meets in this first short is a good balance.”
Undoubtedly, both series are going to be interesting to watch — and we can’t wait to see where they take the Star Wars universe as a whole. Tales of the Underworld arrives on Disney+ on May 4, 2025 but we’re still eagerly waiting on a release date for Maul: Shadow Lord.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
