Another Star Wars thing is in trouble, just like all Star Wars things always are
Watch out, because every character in every Star Wars movie is rushing in to say that they’ve got a baaad feeling about something: As first reported by Above The Line and later confirmed by Deadline, writers Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson have dropped out of the mysterious Star Wars project they were working on. We heard about this movie back in October, when Lucasfilm had assembled a crew of TV writers to tackle this (despite it being a movie), and we still don’t have any details on what it is supposed to be about—other than Star Wars stuff. Droids, aliens, blasters. Maybe lightsabers, maybe spaceships.
Lindelof actually hinted at his cold feet a few days ago, explaining during an appearance at SXSW (via /Film) that the “degree of difficulty” on a Star Wars movie is “extremely, extremely, extremely high,” adding, “if it can’t be great, it shouldn’t exist.” He also noted that when you have something that you hold “in such high reverence and esteem,” then perhaps it should be like going into a kitchen and realizing “maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.”
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And now he has dropped out, which seems… telling. Presumably, he and Britt-Gibson felt like they couldn’t make this thing great and that they should be eating rather than cooking. We can’t really speculate without knowing more, but this does continue the trend of Star Wars projects falling apart at Disney. It was just a few weeks ago that Lucasfilm shelved upcoming projects from Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins and Marvel Cinematic Universe mastermind Kevin Feige, so clearly if there is a way to make a Star Wars movie work, then the studio isn’t quite sure what it is anymore. Who knows, maybe someday another Star Wars movie will come out....
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