Skeleton Crew showrunner Jon Watts has brought together an incredible roster of directors for the debut season of the show, including the talent who helmed Twisters, Thunderbolts and key episodes of The Mandalorian and speaking with Empire Magazine Watts and the directors explain how they all came to the project which lands on Disney Plus on 3rd December.
(E)ven by Star Wars standards, upcoming series Skeleton Crew – a galactic pirate adventure, in which four suburban kids get lost in the vastness of space and have to find their way home – boasts a particularly stellar roster of filmmakers.
Jon Watts – of the Spider-Man MCU trilogy – devised the show along with his longtime collaborator and friend Christopher Ford, and together the pair assembled an who’s-who of directing talent: Bryce Dallas Howard and Twisters’ Lee Isaac Chung return after their Mandalorian episodes; longtime Star Wars devotee David Lowery (The Green Knight) takes his first step into the galaxy he’s always loved; Thunderbolts*’ Jake Schreier enters cinema’s other massive genre playground; and the Oscar-winning Daniels bring their unique flavour. All that, plus Watts helmed two episodes himself.
Lee Isaac Chung: Jon had talked to [Jon] Favreau about the work I did on Mando. On Mandalorian, everything’s so secretive. After I say, “I’d love to do it,” then [Favreau] reveals what we’re doing. But the first conversation with Jon [Watts], he was immediately showing me concept art — I felt like I was looking at stuff I wasn’t supposed to be seeing yet.
Watts: I was probably breaking some NDA. Minari [Chung’s 2020 drama] is so good, and shows such an ability to work with young actors. We were so happy to have you, because we’ve got four ten-year-olds leading our show. We wanted directors who would be able to show Star Wars from a new perspective, while bringing their own unique storytelling POV. [With Daniels], we all know each other because their longtime DP, Larkin Seiple, shot a lot of things with me and Jake. Everything Everywhere hadn’t come out yet when we got them — I was just a fan of Swiss Army Man, and their crazy commercials and music videos.
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