David Benioff and Dan Weiss, creators of the Game of Thrones HBO show, have explained more about their scrapped Star Wars film, saying “we weren’t the droids [Lucasfilm] were looking for”.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the pair also confirmed reports from 2019 that their film would essentially be “The First Jedi”, telling the story of how the Jedi Order, first lightsabers, and so on came to be.
Lucasfilm hired Benioff and Weiss to direct a series of films in 2018, with the first premiering in 2022, though this was scrapped in 2019 due to scheduling conflicts, the pair said at the time. The split appeared amicable, as Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy also said she hopes Benioff and Weiss would return to Star Wars one day.
The official story appears to have changed, however, as Benioff has now said “[Lucasfilm] ended up not wanting to do a First Jedi story. We had a very specific story idea in mind, and ultimately they decided they didn’t want to do that.
“We totally get it. It’s their company and their IP, but we weren’t the droids they were looking for.”
The scathing comments didn’t stop there though as Weiss also expressed frustration at Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed Star Wars: Episode 8 – The Last Jedi, for stepping on their toes.
“We wanted to do The First Jedi. Basically how the Jedi Order came to be, why it came to be, the first lightsaber,” Benioff said.
“And we were annoyed as hell when [Rian Johnson] called his movie The Last Jedi,” Weiss added. “He completely destroyed the obvious title for what we were working on.”
Concern over the state of Star Wars films isn’t anything new, with the Prequel Trilogy facing a harsh critical reception upon its premiere in 1999, but fans are growing increasingly concerned and confused at the number of films being announced without any actually releasing since 2019’s Star Wars: Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker.
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Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.