Sam Witwer Confirms Maul: Shadow Lord Timeline and Teases Dark New Star Wars Series

Star Wars fans just got some exciting news. A new animated show is coming, and it’s all about Darth Maul. It’s called Maul: Shadow Lord, and Sam Witwer is back to voice the fan-favorite villain.

Witwer shared some details regarding the show during Star Wars Celebration in Japan and shared where the new show fits in the Star Wars timeline.

“This is a year after The Clone Wars. You have a situation where everyone got destroyed by the Clones and Maul’s organization didn’t really hold under that pressure,” Witwer said. “He still has a group with him, but it’s not like it was, and so it was devastating in that way. Everyone is very afraid. Everyone is very uncertain. But he is watching an empire that he knew was coming, but he wasn’t thinking it was going to be like this.”

Witwer explained that Maul only knew part of the plan his master had. “He was in on his master’s plan, but only partially. He knew some things, he didn’t know others. So, he knew the Empire was coming, but he didn’t expect this.”

Fans at Celebration even got to see a sneak peek of the trailer. When asked what he thought about the footage, Witwer said: “I liked it. I thought it was good. It’s nice to give people a taste of what the series is going to be. The visual style, for example, and even the audio, and all that stuff. We’re going a little bit further than we’ve gone before.”

He added that because the show is told from Maul’s point of view, everything looks and feels different.

“If you’re doing a show where Maul is a point-of-view character, then it necessitates that you take your familiar style, but you tweak it for how he sees the world. So, it’s a little bit darker. It’s a little bit more dangerous in the way that it looks and sounds and feels.”

Witwer also talked about what drives Maul in this new chapter.

“Maul is a classically trained Force user. He comes from a time of magic and dragons and knights, and now he’s watching an empire drain all of the magic and color out of the galaxy. Individuality is being snuffed out, and everything is becoming mechanized.”

Maul is starting to question what’s happening around him.

“He’s going, ‘Well, wait a second…’ He is asking questions about this. Does that mean that he wants to do something about it? Well, it’s more complicated. Can he do anything about this? It doesn’t seem like anyone could.”

Witwer also reminded fans that Maul had one clear mission: destroy Jedi.

“He’s looking around, and he’s raised [with] the express purpose to destroy Jedi Knights, and during The Clone Wars, he did. He killed a lot more Jedi during the Clone Wars than we are aware of. We hinted that he was on a spree with Savage Opress, but that went further than people think.”

Now, the Jedi are gone. What does Maul do next?

This new series gives fans another chance to explore what happens between the big events in Star Wars. Animated shows like The Clone Wars and Rebels have helped fill in these gaps and make the story even richer. Without them, fans would miss out on a lot, like the full history between Obi-Wan and Maul.

Maul: Shadow Lord is still in development, and there’s no release date yet. In the meantime, fans can catch up on Maul’s story by watching The Clone Wars, now streaming on Disney+.

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