By: Dominic Jones
There is no denying that Solo: A Star Wars Story was a major disappointment at the box office. It currently stands at having made just $194 million domestically and $147 million internationally (for a grand total of $341 million). As a result, it appears Lucasfilm has decided to place all current Star Wars spin off films, otherwise known as the A Star Wars Story films, on hold, a new report from Collider claims. The company is instead focusing their efforts on the production of Star Wars Episode IX, while it decides what to do going forward with the spin offs.
"We’re hearing that plans to revisit this A Star Wars Story
format have been put on hold for the moment. Initially announced as
“anthology” movies, the spinoffs got off to a rocky start and haven’t
exactly been smooth sailing."
The projects put on hold reportedly include the Obi-Wan Kenobi film that The Crown's Stephen Daldry was rumored to be working on, and the recently rumored Boba Fett film from Logan director James Mangold. Not impacted by this decision are the trilogy of films from The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson and the series of films by Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
While Solo's under-performance at the box office will (rightfully) take the brunt of the blame for this decision, the troubled productions of Rogue One and Solo is also a significant factor. Solo, famously, saw the film's original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie) be replaced midway through production by Ron Howard. Howard reportedly reshot approximately 70% of the film. Rogue One also saw significant reshoots, close to 40%, with Tony Gilroy being brought in to finish the film after Disney executives were underwhelmed by Gareth Edwards' first cut.
In a way this decision is no surprise. Star Wars has been going through a rough patch of late, which Solo's lack of financial success was certainly a large part of. But, it's also worth noting that we've only seen two A Star Wars Story films, one of which was a massive success. While Solo will go down as a disappointment, Rogue One grossed over a billion dollars and was the highest grossing film of the year in North America for 2016. Granted, Hollywood is a "what have you done for me lately" business and clearly Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm decided they needed to make a drastic change after Solo.
Which is a shame, because it seemed like there was some cool stuff in the works. In addition to the rumored Kenobi and Fett movies, Solo left the door open for some major storylines (looking at you, Qi'Ra, Maul, and Crimson Dawn) and introduced us to Donald Glover's take on Lando Calrissian which seemed like a home run idea to give him his own film. Plus, in a universe as rich with characters as Star Wars there is potential for virtually every character to have a compelling story told about them.
So does this mean the ends of the A Star Wars Story films forever? As a certain Jedi once said, "always in motion is the future". There is always a chance that Lucasfilm and Disney will reverse this decision down the line and decide to return to the stand alone films again. But right now it appears that everyone hoping for Kenobi: A Star Wars Story or Boba Fett: A Star Wars Story will have to keep waiting.
And just tor rub a little extra salt in the wound, Weintrub reports that the Kenobi movie really was happening but production has been stopped on it. He writes, "Sources tell us that the previously rumored Obi-Wan movie was in active development, but those who were working on the film are no longer involved."
As always, this is just a rumor until confirmed or denied by Lucasfilm or Disney.
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