The Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito has confirmed that the third season of The Mandalorian will film this year and is ‘sure’ Pedro Pascal has worked out a deal to do both The Mandalorian and The Last of Us.
During an interview with WRAL, Esposito was asked if filming on the third season of The Mandalorian would take place this year, Esposito responded saying, “Yes. They just finished shooting Boba Fett and soon they’ll start on season three of Mandalorian.” The interviewer quickly followed up by asking Giancarlo if the team were waiting on Pedro Pascal due to his commitments to The Last of Us which is currently filming, to which Esposito added, “I don’t know what Pedro is up to. We never have to wait on Pedro.” The WRAL interviewer mentioned having Pascal around more possibly due to Din Djarin not wearing the helmet as much in the upcoming third season, to which Esposito said, “I can’t speak to that. I know he’d love to be more out of the helmet, but you know his job is to be in the helmet. That’s the deal. I’m sure that he’s worked out something to do his other show and come back and do us.”
There has been a lot of confusion all year regarding production on the third season of The Mandalorian. Back in October last year, the series creator Jon Favreau revealed in an interview with Variety that filming on the third season would begin “before the end of the year” once lead actor Pedro Pascal had wrapped filming on the movie, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Just a couple of months later, in December, Favreau confirmed that the third season was in pre-production. In February of this year, Lucasfilm fired Gina Carano who was set to appear in the third season as Cara Dune and lead her own series, Rangers of the New Republic. It was then reported by Production Weekly that the third season would begin filming in April of this year, but this never came to fruition. Around this time Pedro Pascal landed the lead role of Joel Miller in HBO’s The Last of Us series which began filming earlier this month in Canada and is set to run into June next year. During the announcement it was mentioned that Pascal signed the deal due to an unexpected opening in his schedule and that The Last of Us was made first priority.
We at Bespin Bulletin said many time on our podcast, BOB The Podcast, that we believed the third season would film late 2021 due to Pascal’s commitments to The Last of Us and I’d heard that Pascal had gaps in his Last of Us schedule closer to the winter months. In June, Collider reported that the third season would begin filming in late 2021 or early 2022 according to their sources.
Many fans have argued that Pascal isn’t need for a third season due to Din Djarin primarily sporting his Mandalorian helmet. However it seems that the team want or need Pascal for filming with Favreau initially saying they’d film once Pascal had finished shooting The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and now Giancarlo Esposito saying that he’s sure Pascal has worked out a deal to film scenes for The Mandalorian whilst still being committed to The Last of Us.