The Book of Boba Fett was kept secret from almost everyone at Disney until it was announced at the end of The Mandalorian season two

At the end of the final episode of The Mandalorian season two, there was a post-credits scene showing Boba Fett killing Bib Fortuna and taking the throne at Jabba’s Palace, which served as a teaser and an announcement for The Book of Boba Fett, a brand new series to come.

Just days earlier, Lucasfilm President Kathy Kennedy had announced plenty of upcoming Star Wars projects, but nothing was heard about this show whatsoever. And it turns out that the audience wasn’t the only ones to not have knowledge of the show. In fact, Robert Rodriguez told The Hollywood Reporter that, “Even Disney didn’t know we were going to drop it like that. I got to see the inner workings, and [Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni] kept this a secret from everybody.”

The article goes on to note that the top executives and business affairs people at the company did know, so don’t let anyone run with inane suggestions that they went behind Kennedy’s back or anything hilariously wrong like that (Kennedy is an executive producer on the series). But it nonetheless does give us a peek at just how secretive the project was.

One of the people who didn’t realize the show was happening was Ming-Na Wen, who stars alongside Temuera Morrison. She figured she was going to be in another season of The Mandalorian until she showed up on set and realized it was for a different series altogether. “They’re so secretive that when dealing with the contracts, there isn’t even a title for the show; it’s all under pseudonym,” Wen told THR. “I naturally assumed I was doing Mandalorian season three until I showed up on set.”

All of Disney’s studios are quite secretive on their projects, particularly Lucasfilm and Marvel. But it is amazing just how much some of these things are kept secret even within the studios. Favreau and Filoni wanted to do everything they could to preserve the excitement over the surprise announcement at the end of the season, and it worked splendidly. I know it sometimes gets frustrating when there is very little information about what is going on, and often things wind up leaking anyway, but in those rare situations where a surprise is preserved like this, it winds up being really cool.