With Solo: A Star Wars Story still in cinemas worldwide, albeit limping along in comparison to Infinity War, Deadpool 2 and Jurassic World, rumours have been hitting the web over the past few days that Lucasfilm have – and then perhaps have not – put production on all standalone projects ‘on hold’. While bringing in reasonable box office figures by general movie standards – but not by Star Wars standards – has Solo caused a shift in Lucasfilm’s thinking around these Star Wars standalone films? Let’s take a look at some of the speculation, and how this may be affecting the production slate for future Star Wars films.
Various websites, running off the back of a story initially broke by Fantha Tracks, have been reporting that production was beginning in earnest on an Obi-Wan Kenobi stand alone and that this would take over production space once shooting on Episode 9 was complete. This is how much of the production has gone to date, with Episode 7 and 8 progressing alongside Rogue One and Solo, so it would seem to make sense. A little under 4 weeks ago unsubstantiated rumours also surfaced that Logan director James Mangold was in line to helm a Boba Fett project, picking up from the abandoned Josh Trank Fett film a few years back.
Back in early June, rumours started to circulate that Kathleen Kennedy may be stepping down from her role at Lucasfilm. These are rumours, nothing more, but if there was some reorganisation being planned at Lucasfilm, then putting these projects on hold would make some sense. One change that many fans have been hoping for is for someone like Dave Filoni to become the creative lead for Star Wars. If Kathleen were to take a step back from creative involvement to focus on running the business side of Lucasfilm, then it seems only fair that a new person stepping in to the role gets the chance to green light fresh, new projects they would ultimately be overseeing. After all, in any walk of life when you start a new job you want to have the chance to put your stamp on the role and not necessarily pick up projects that were started by your predecessor – or you may want to refine their vision. Either way, when Lucasfilm is committing vast resources in time, personnel and money to new Star Wars projects, they need to be sure they avoid some of the issues that have hit their output so far – changes of director on nearly every film to date, re-shoots and recasting and production delays such as the reshuffling of Episode 7 production after Harrison Ford’s unfortunate on set injury. All avoidable hurdles.
It’s also important to remember that when J.J. Abrams started production on The Force Awakens, it was publicly stated that all other Star Wars projects were ‘put on hold’ to allow everyone at Lucasfilm to concentrate fully on the upcoming rebirth of the franchise. With the decidedly mixed reaction to The Last Jedi and apathy from audiences towards Solo, can you blame Lucasfilm for wanting to make sure everyone is fully focussed on making Episode 9 as good as it can be?
All of these things are relative, we’re not talking about a company in any kind of crisis, but merely looking to take stock of its current position and make sure it is in the best place possible to deliver it’s current slate of projects to the best of its ability. A similar shake up happened over at Marvel and both fans and critics have seen the results displayed in their recent films – Thor: Ragnarok and subsequent films benefited from the filmmakers being allowed to make great movies after having had the constraints of Marvel’s equivalent of the story group relaxed.
Ultimately this could be just what Star Wars needs. We have Episode 9, the new animated show Star Wars: Resistance and numerous other film and TV projects at mixed stages of progression, so rather than try and push forward on multiple fronts at the same time, let’s all do as Luke instructed Rey – relax and breathe….