Frustrated at the current lack of merchandise for Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian? Well, you can blame Donald Glover for that.
Donald Glover is no stranger to both the Star Wars franchise and Jon Favreau, having portrayed young Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story and having voiced Simba in Jon Favreau’s photorealistic remake of The Lion King. According to The Mandalorian’s creator and showrunner, he and Donald Glover were having a conversation about the lack of surprises in popular culture during their collaboration on The Lion King, to which Donald Glover suggested that Baby Yoda would be kept as a surprise for audiences tuning into the first episode of The Mandalorian.
Jon Favreau recounted his conversation with Donald Glover to The Hollywood Reporter:
“We were talking about music and pop culture and he was saying that what people really like now is to be surprised, because it doesn’t happen that much. When Beyoncé did an album, she would just put it online and everybody would react to it. Just putting it out there spurred a conversation that would become more viral and bring more genuine attention than any marketing.”
It seems that Donald Glover’s advice for promoting Baby Yoda and The Mandalorian worked in its favor. After all, the demand for Baby Yoda merchandise following the premiere of the series on Disney+ in November is incredibly high, with Disney looking to release Baby Yoda toys in 2020 for fans eager to have “The Child” as their own. Also, given the countless Baby Yoda memes across the internet, it’s nice to have one element of the Star Wars franchise that seems to unite the fanbase together for once amidst all the toxic energy surrounding the franchise’s discourse online.
Do you think Donald Glover’s advice regarding keeping Baby Yoda as a surprise helped The Mandalorian in the long run? Sound off in the comments below, and be sure to continue following Heroic Hollywood for all the latest updates on Donald Glover, Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda and the rest of the Star Wars universe.
Here is the official synopsis for The Mandalorian:
After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.
The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow, Carl Weathers, Omid Abtahi, Werner Herzog, and Nick Nolte. The Star Wars series was written by Jon Favreau, who also serves as an executive producer alongside Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson. Karen Gilchrist is also on board as a co-executive producer.
The Mandalorian is available to stream exclusively on Disney+.
Source: THR
