LucasFilm is hitting pause on their Star Wars Story films that are currently in their development pipeline. According to Collider’s editor-in-chief is stating that according to “multiple sources… Lucasfilm has put the Star Wars story spinoffs on hiatus.”
The company is now focusing strictly on Episode IX and the next trilogy of films wat would come after that. This means an Obi-Wan Kenobi film, which Weintraub stated was in active pre-production, has now been shut down. Any other projects, including the rumored Boba Fett spinoff film that director James Mangold was in talks to take charge of, has also been placed in carbonite deep freeze for the time being.
This move from Lucasfilm really doesn’t come as much of a surprise, given the recent poor box office performance of the most recent Star Wars Story film, Solo. The film opened to underwhelming box office and has sputtered along since. In its fourth week of release, the film has barely cleared $195 million at the domestic box office.
Both Star Wars Story films – Solo and 2016’s Rogue One – have had troubled production histories. Rogue One’s original director Gareth Edwards stepped aside as Tony Gilroy was brought in to restructure and partially reshoot that films third act. Solo infamously had co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller yanked off the project with just two weeks left to principal photography when Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy was not happy with the footage they were turning in. Ron Howard came in to save the project, reshooting approximately seventy percent of the finished product.
Currently Lucasfilm is developing two new Star Wars trilogies – one from The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson and one from Game Of Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. It is still unclear which trilogy project will be going forward, though Weintraub seemed to think it was likely to be Johnson’s project.
