Future and potential Star Wars films - news and speculation

pixelburp

Not sure if it was an open secret, but Guillermo Del Toro admitted that he had been working on a Star Wars project: "The Rise and Fall of Jabba the Hutt". I mean if del Toro was gonna pick an existing Star Wars character, Jabba and his exotic entourage would have been entirely on-brand for the man

https://collider.com/guillermo-del-toro-star-wars-movie-comments/

We had the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy. We were doing a lot of stuff, and then it’s not my property, it’s not my money, and then it’s one of those 30 screenplays that goes away. Sometimes I'm bitter, sometimes I'm not. I always turn to my team and say, “Good practice, guys. Good practice. We designed a great world. We designed great stuff. We learned.” You can never be ungrateful with life. Whatever life sends you, there's something to be learned from it. So, you know, I trust the universe, I do. When something doesn't happen, I go, “Why?” I try to have a dialogue with myself. “Why didn’t it happen?” And the more you swim upstream with the universe, the less you're gonna realize where you're going

Tony EH

Oh dear. That sounds so bad on so many levels.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121217232#Comment_121217232

With DelToro it would have looked good though; these bland as F TV shows are sapping my interest in this universe 'cos nobody wants to actually try and use their imagination.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121217352#Comment_121217352

Maybe. But Gizmo's movies leave cold. Although I hear his 'Pinocchio' was a great effort.

Also, Jabba was an amazing puppet brought to life 40 years by a team of people who knew their stuff and also knew the limitations of what they could do, thus creating a completely believable creature. An inevitable CGI will only look meh at the end of the day and will stink of computers. In 'The Book of Boba Fett' they paled in comparison to what we saw in 'Return of the Jedi', even if they were relatively well done.

McFly85

The rise of Jabba the Hut is a backstory we don’t need and further shrinks the universe by repeatedly focusing on characters we already know(and really, know enough about).

Would love for the new films to follow Andors lead to move away from established characters and create a new story with completely original characters, that keeps the SW setting but without the baggage of the previous 9 films.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121218212#Comment_121218212

For sure and it's well that the project is in general dead as a dodo ... though I'd say if there were one director who'd likely have insisted upon a puppet Jabba & not CGI, it'd be Del Toro; the man has always appreciated the value of a puppet, or animatronic, or Duncan Jones in a mask.

Mr Crispy

Or better yet, Doug Jones. :pac:

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121219109#Comment_121219109

Duncan Jones' career has cratered since Mute; the guy's gotta eat and is happy to slum it around in a prosthetic mask 🤡

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121219079#Comment_121219079

Perhaps. But I shudder to think what the cost of a Jabba the Hutt puppet/animatronic would cost today. Into the bargain, the entire film was supposed to be centred on Jabba, which automatically eliminates puppetry on such a scale.

Jabba the Hutt works as a secondary bad guy, one where we don't have to spend too much time with him. Beyond that is likely to be a disaster. Just like Boba Fett one might say. But more so, because he's more than just a guy in a fancy suit of armour.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121219182#Comment_121219182

He is doing pre production on a Rogue Trooper movie.

pixelburp

Kevin Feige reveals that his Star Wars movie isn't going ahead; sighs of relief all round?

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/kevin-feige-confirms-his-star-wars-movie-is-not-moving-forward-1235343066/

UI_Paddy

Not surpring really. The MCU is a long term commitment, Feige has invested a lot of time and energy into it and the current phase arguably needs him more than ever.

I'm still not going to believe any of the planned or reported movies are going ahead unless I hear they're filming them. How many has Kennedy scrapped at this point?

pixelburp

Dave Filoni has been promoted to "chief creative officer" at LucasFilm; it does read like his role will be at the development stage. So I guess he might direct the broad direction of the universe in future.

Hopefully he'll push for more Andor level material, but his past form has shown a preference for toybox storytelling over coherency.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/11/star-wars-ahsoka-dave-filoni

Tony EH

Did Filoni have anything much to do with 'Andor'? I got the impression he wasn't all that involved.

Brief_Lives

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121397958#Comment_121397958

The clone wars, Rebels amd The Mandalorian were quite good

Bookof Bobba Fett, not so much..

MisterAnarchy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121397958#Comment_121397958

He wasnt involved in Andor in any aspect I believe.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121397958#Comment_121397958

AFAIK no not at all, but if Feloni is now in charge of overall direction ala Kevin Feige, you'd hope he'll think to ringfence aspects to work like Andor - aka, stuff not written for fanboys or kids.

Theboinkmaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121397463#Comment_121397463

Don't think thats good news - they need some young fresh talent not another kathleen kennedy/kevin feige clone.

Penn

I think it's fine news. My only worry is now I'll definitely have to watch all the animated stuff in order to understand anything that happens in Star Wars from now on.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121399849#Comment_121399849

There does seem to be an absence of young voices on Star Wars and the MCU these days - but this announcement could go either way.; if it means the franchise becomes even more "it's all connected!" then that'll be a bummer IMO.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121398182#Comment_121398182

Hmmmm...I'd beg to differ. I thought 'The Clones Wars' was a confusing mess, 'Rebels' was twee kiddie fodder and 'The Mandalorian' dropped off a cliff (especially the third series which was chronic). As for 'The Book of Boba Fett', that was one big fat mistake AFAIC.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121398291#Comment_121398291

There's some folk out there that think Filloni is some sort of saviour for some reason. I've never seen him that way myself. What Filloni thinks Star Wars should be and what I think it should be appear to be two very different things indeed. Plus I'm super tired of him pushing his creation into everything. Ahsoka has never been anything more than an irritation. Even when older, she's nothing more than the usual stoic, tedious, Jedi cliche. And if the series 'Ahsoka' is any indication of where Star Wars is going to go under Filloni's handling, well that certainly doesn't bode well.

Brief_Lives

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121401151#Comment_121401151

to be honest, i don't think i have read anything positive from you on this site, when i see your comments pop up on different threads. So yea, we probably do differ.

Rebels was good, most of the characters went from Zahn's and Lucas' ideas to cartoon to live action tv series.

we do agree on The Book of Bobba Fett

Tony EH

to be honest, i don't think i have read anything positive from you on this site,

Wow.

🤣

Homelander

Not gonna say anything about Clone Wars or Rebels as I've not seen them but by all accounts friends that have do rate them fairly highly.

But I agree that while Filoni has definitely done some good stuff, equally I think he's made a fairly bad job of others

Mandalorian S1 + S2 are genuinely good. But S3 dropped sharply in quality and became an overly childish live-action cartoon versus what it was previous. I'm not saying there isn't entertainment or watchability in it, but the shift is extremely obvious.

Book of Boba Fett I thought was embarrassingly bad despite initial promise. Ahsoka wasn't awful but suffered from the cartoon-like qualities evident in Mando S3 as well.

I know he was nothing to do with Obi-Wan but that was another show that felt like it was written to be a cartoon rather than live-action. Some decent moments, but an awful lot of the clunky, awkward action, bad writing and weak dialogue as well.

Andor and Mandalorian S1 stand out as really good shows. Everything else is kinda a mixed bag overall at the best of times for me personally, just really inconsistent, often within the same episodes.

It's not that I expect everything to be adult and gritty. I just find the execution of most of these shows hugely inconsistent, almost like an identity crisis as to what they're trying to achieve and who they're aimed at.

The original trilogy, prequel trilogy, and to an extent TFA and TLJ walk the middle ground perfectly (regardless of what you think about them); movies made for everyone to enjoy and take different things from. The same is true of franchises like Shrek or Toy Story; obviously kids are front at the creative decision making, but they're not just for kids.

johnny_ultimate

The problem with Filoni’s storytelling is he mistakes ‘lore’ for interesting narrative. Fine for some who’ve followed along, but frustrating for anyone who doesn’t have dozens of hours of various TV shows under their belt.

Mandalorian season 3 was barely watchable IMO for its obsession with uninteresting backstory - whereas it worked absolutely fine as a lightly serialised ‘adventure of the week’ kind of show.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121401906#Comment_121401906

So long as you provide viewers with enough relevant info that they know what's happening or why something is important, it's fine. Marvel have fallen into this trap a few times since the TV shows on Disney+ where they then don't give enough info to people who only watch the movies, and suddenly some characters are completely different. It's fine if it's just references or a side character here and there, but for character motivations you have to bring all viewers along with you.

With Ahsoka especially, Filoni just gave no help to people who hadn't watched the animated shows. And funnily enough, about 12 seasons of animated shows is too much for people to now try catch up on.

pixelburp

Yeah, that's basically the foundation of my frustration with Filoni too: he's borderline obsessed with Lore and Canon to the expense of storytelling; but it probably doesn't help that his predominance in children's TV hasn't given him the breadth in skillset to write something adults could digest.

Before dropping out of Ahsoka, aside from its arrogant dismissal of viewers who mightn't be following on from Rebels, the quality of dialogue and general motivation was just infantile. It had the energy of a kid's show, rendered in live action. So my primary concern with Filoni as head honcho would be if get still has access to the Writer's Room.

Relikk

I wouldn't put the blame on Filoni for all of the "watch that show to see why this happens in this show" guff, that's on Disney and their obsession with tying all of the events within their acquired IP's together. It was tiresome with Marvel even 5 years ago, now it's insufferable. Star Wars will be no different, but at least someone is at the helm. He can intervene at the developmental stage and either approve or object to specific elements in a story, rather than just giving carte blanche to subpar writers. No doubt he still keeps in touch with George, as well. It really should have been done before starting production on the sequel trilogy, because Lucasfilm's internal story group never seemed to have a clue about what they were doing based on the amount of rubbish we've seen in film, TV, comics and books over the past 10 years.

pixelburp

Chad Stahelski puts his hand up to work a Star Wars movie; obviously nothing close to official but as directors go, it'd have some potential for fun to see him fashion action scenes in this universe.

“John Wick” director Chad Stahelski says he wants to “take a swing” at making a “Star Wars” film.

In a recent interview with “Happy Sad Confused” host Josh Horowitz, the action-thriller director opened up about a potential franchise he wants to be a part of in the future, bringing up the sci-fi favorite.

“I’m a ‘Star Wars’ guy, like, the first ‘Star Wars’ changed my life,” said Stahelski. “Maybe someday out there. Disney, if you’re listening, hit me in a couple of years and I have a couple of takes for ‘Star Wars.'”

“I’d take a swing at that. I challenge you … see if Disney could survive me,” he added

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/john-wick-director-wants-to-make-star-wars-movie-1235863245/