Why Jonathan Kasdan Wanted a 20-Year Time Gap Between Willow and His Sequel Series

In an interview with Collider, Jonathan Kasdan shared that a narrative-based time gap between the original "Willow" and the Disney+ series, which largely (but not exactly) matches the real-time gap between the two versions, was born out of the need to complete the story that Kasdan wanted to tell. Kasdan told Collider:

"I'm someone who walked out of seeing [the feature film] thinking, 'Well, I expect one every three years [...] I'm supposed to see Elora at seven and then at noon, and then 15," and all of those things. And because the realities of the industry, and the world, created a dynamic where that was the time when we could do a story about those characters and the follow, I knew that in story terms, at least, there was going to be a good 20-year gap between the movie and when we picked up [...] The story I wanted to tell was [always ] about Elora learning magic organically just born, that the way to tell this story and live her whole journey was to hide this information from her for this period of time and let it be something that she finds out with the audience."

The gap, however, did more than give Elora a chance to reach adulthood. Jumping back in time allowed all of the original actors who were able to return to "Willow" to do so. Otherwise, Warwick Davis would have been forced to pretend that 30 years of aging boils down to the inherent exhaustion of parenthood. Come to think of it, that would have been pretty damn funny, actually.

The "Willow" series is now streaming on Disney+.