Wait, Why is Making Star Wars Movies So Hard?

It’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years, almost to the day, since it was announced that The Walt Disney Company was acquiring Lucasfilm. The day that it happened, Disney promised a brand new trilogy of films, as well as other movies beyond that, as well as new theme park attractions and other experiences. 

For the most part, Disney has done what it said it would do. We got the trilogy, which made billions of dollars. We got the major theme park investment with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. We even got stuff we weren’t expecting, like a slew of Star Wars television on Disney+. However, of everything that Disney has done with Star Wars, the hardest part seems to be the one thing that Star Wars knew how to do under George Lucas… make movies.

Nearly Every Star Wars Movie Has Had Serious Production Issues, Even the Ones That Got Made

Over the weekend, an interview with director Taika Waititi said that his Star Wars project, which he was set to co-write and direct, was “on ice” and was, in fact, “very iced,” indicating that the movie is, at this point, highly unlikely to happen. This despite the fact that earlier this year a departing Kathleen Kennedy said a script had been submitted. This makes Waititi’s film the latest in a long line of Star Wars movies to never make it to production.

The list of Star Wars movies that we’re not getting dates back to before the movies that we actually got. Josh Trank was initially set to direct a Star Wars anthology (the name given at the time to the non-trilogy projects), but in May 2015, six months before Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released, he left the project. 

Trank would be the first of many. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the showrunners of Game of Thrones, were supposed to give us a trilogy. Rian Johnson was supposed to write a trilogy after finishing The Last Jedi. Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins was going to make a Rogue Squadron movie.

Simon Kinberg was going to write a movie (before the trilogy he is reportedly currently writing). Marvel’s Kevin Feige was going to produce one.  Damon Lindelof was going to write one at one point. The current status of more recently announced Star Wars movies to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and James Mangold is unknown.

And let's not even get started on The Hunt for Ben Solo.

But even outside the list of movies that Lucasfilm has tried and failed to produce is the fact that even the movies that Lucasfilm has made haven’t been free of problems. Gareth Edwards directed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, except for the film’s significant reshoots, which, by all accounts, drastically changed the story and were reportedly handled by future Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy.

Star Wars: Episode IX was originally to be directed by Colin Trevorrow, before he was replaced by J.J. Abrams. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were famously fired mid-production on Solo: A Star Wars Story and replaced by Ron Howard.  

There are Plenty of Star Wars Stories to Tell, So What's the Problem?

The news that Disney had purchased Lucasfilm came months after the release of The Avengers from Marvel Studios. The end of what turned out to be only the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Still, the idea of making a series of movies in a shared world had been proven successful.

There was clearly an expectation that Star Wars was going to try and do something similar. The new trilogy was one thing, but the real opportunity was in the “anthology” films that would have been set in the same galaxy far, far away, but told stories only tangentially connected to the main story, if connected at all. Unfortunately, Solo lost money, and then Lucasfilm seemed gun-shy about the entire concept. A big reason Solo lost money was that firing the directors mid-production meant the budget ballooned far beyond where it should have been, but never mind that.

While certainly not everybody was sold on turning Star Wars into something like the MCU, the fact remains that if that was the goal, doing so should have been fairly easy. The existing six movies had introduced us to countless worlds, characters, and alien species. Picking up a corner of the Star Wars franchise and expanding on it, or creating something entirely new that simply felt like it belonged in Star Wars doesn’t seem like too tall an order. 

And to be fair, Lucasfilm under Disney has been doing this to some extent. Ahsoka has been expanding on previous parts of the franchise, while the recent Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was almost entirely disconnected from any previous story. By all accounts, the upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter will be very much a standalone story that will take place in a world we know, but not be connected to any previous part of the story.

But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. If these projects can be done as series, why is making movies so hard? What did Star Wars: Starfighter do right that every other project that came before it did wrong?

Star Wars Isn't Fragile

The answer to those questions isn’t easy without a lot of information that we don’t have. Kathleen Kennedy can probably tell us, though I don’t expect she will (my DMs are open if she’d like to let me know). Assuming that what information we have is accurate, some of the movies that fell apart did so because certain filmmakers just changed their mind about making the films. Others, like the Ben Solo movie, apparently died because executives couldn't get their heads around certain story elements.

There does seem to be a feeling at Lucasfilm that Star Wars is a special, fragile thing, and you might break it if you're too rough with it. But at the same time, we've had all the above-mentioned films in various forms of development over the last few years. Lucasfilm seems interested in doing a lot more with Star Wars, until it comes time to actually do it, and then they get cold feet.

For a minute there, with both The Mandalorian and Grogu and Star Wars: Starfighter on the way, it looked like the franchise may have turned a corner. Two movies in two years? Could it be so? But now, one of those movies is in the rearview mirror, and after the other is released, we have no idea what will come or when we’ll see it. There are rumors that Star Wars: Episode X is in development and may even have a director, but that’s yet to be confirmed.

Some of these films, like the Waititi movie and even the Patty Jenkins film, haven't been confirmed to be dead, so it's still possible, however unlikely, that they could happen. I hope we see them. I'd like to watch them both.

There's a new regime at Lucasfilm now, and we don't really know what they're thinking yet. What little Star Wars content that is on the schedule is the old regime wrapping up. I personally hope that we do start to see more regular Star Wars movies in theaters going forward, but if the biggest change we get is fewer movies getting announced that never happen, that'll be a step in the right direction.