Disney+’s Willow originally intended to bring back Val Kilmer as Madmartigan before circumstances prevented his return. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Jonathan Kasdan discussed the show’s initial plan to bring back Kilmer’s swaggering swordsman.
“We really wanted Val to come be in the show,” he explained. “And Val really wanted to come out and be in the show. I remember going to see Val right after this thing started to get some momentum, and I said, ‘Listen, we’re doing this. And the whole world wants Madmartigan back.’ And he was like, ‘Not as much as I do.'” Kasdan added, “He embraced me when I left. He picked me up, and he said, ‘See? I’m still super strong.’ And I was like, ‘Great.'”
Kasdan said that Willow’s initial season was written with Madmartigan’s return in mind. However, the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with Kilmer’s recovery from throat cancer, made the prospect untenable. “We were prepping in the spring of the year that it was most happening,” he said. “And Val reluctantly didn’t feel he could come out. We had to figure out a way to preserve the story we wanted to tell with him about how his story was playing out.” Fortunately, Kasdan has said that the character will still have a role to play in the series, confirming that “Madmartigan lives on.”
The Return of Willow
Directed by Ron Howard and based on a story by George Lucas, 1988’s Willow was an epic fantasy starring Warwick Davis as Willow Ufgood, a dwarfish amateur magician charged with protecting an infant princess from the wicked queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh). Although the film wasn’t an immediate hit, it eventually found an audience on home video and became a cult classic.
A sequel series was announced in October 2020 with Davis returning as Willow alongside Joanne Walley as Sorsha, Bavmorda’s daughter who eventually turns against her and marries Madmartigan. The series will follow Kit (Ruby Cruz), Sorsha and Madmartigan’s daughter, as she recruits Willow and an unlikely group of adventurers for a quest to save her twin brother.
Although Kilmer isn’t part of the show now, he may be in the future, as Kasdan hopes to continue Willow beyond one season, possibly even to a feature film. “Where it seems to be that the street leads from movies to TV, I hope that we’re headed toward a moment where the reverse direction can be done too,” he said. However, he reiterated his focus is on keeping the series going, saying, “The first thing we’d like to do is another season because we’ve got a lot more that we’d like to tell here.”