It’s no secret that Lucasfilm, in recent years, hasn’t had an exceptional batting average regarding films announced and projects made. The list of “Star Wars” films and series announced in recent years that haven’t come to pass is too long to list but includes an unrealized new trilogy from Rian Johnson, a movie from Taika Waiti that may or may not get made, “Rangers Of The Republic,” a still-unmade “Lando” series, Patty Jenkins’ “Rogue Squadron” (which may have some life in it still) and an unproduced trilogy by the creators of “Game Of Thrones.”
Shortly after “Game Of Thrones” ended, creators and writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were announced as the duo who would create a new “Star Wars” trilogy set hundreds of years in the Old Republic before the current canon and about the creation of the Jedi and its early days. In March of 2019, Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy even called their trilogy and Johnson’s the “next ten years of ‘Star Wars,” but it was not meant to be.
The duos signed a lucrative and controversial Netflix deal not long after their “Star Wars” deal was made—reportedly upsetting Lucasfilm—and just over a year after it was announced, Benioff and Weiss exited their “Star Wars” trilogy.
Promoting their latest Netflix series, “3 Body Problem,” on the Happy Sad Confused show, the duo was asked about the “Star Wars” exit and said it was “sad” and “a shame” that it didn’t happen but side-skirted any actual details.
“We got relatively far story-wise with the first one and like it had kind of a basic road map for the other two,” Weiss explained. “And yeah, it was a shame. The truth is, Hollywood’s ratio or batting average on things conceived to things that actually finish has never been tremendously high, and there’s always gonna be ones that get away for various reasons; the ones that just aren’t meant to be.”
“So it was sad that that was one of them for us, he continued but then tried to chalk it up to something that you just have to move on from. “As time goes on, you just kind of need to let go of those things because if you don’t, you’ll drive yourself completely crazy.”
Happy Sad Confused followed up with a rather pointed but good question. Their story idea was centered around the early creation of the Jedi, and filmmaker James Mangold is essentially going to be making a movie about the same thing, set in the same era. So, is that awkward for them?
Well, they answered very diplomatically and almost not at all. “I love Jim, he’s a great dude, so all the best of luck to him,” Benioff said.
From there, the conversation seemingly did get awkward, so the host understandably let it go. Either way, it doesn’t sound like Benioff and Weiss will ever return to that universe, but given their well-paid Netflix deal, they won’t ever need to. Check out the entire HSC conversation below.