Upon viewing Star Wars: A New Hope and, in particular, its iconic opening crawl, you likely felt a rush of excitement and wonder as George Lucas slowly began to peel back the layers of that iconic galaxy far, far away. John Knoll, on the other hand, was inspired.
As a matter of fact, Knoll was inspired by a few lines in particular: “It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star.” Fast forward 40 years and we arrive at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the Gareth Edwards-directed war movie and the first of Disney’s planned Star Wars anthology films.
For all of its alleged production woes, the star-studded prequel emerged on the other end relatively unscathed, and would go on to rake in a staggering $1.05 billion at the worldwide box office. If nothing else, Rogue One is a testimony to the vast richness of the Star Wars universe in that Gareth Edwards and John Knoll were able to mine inspiration from such a fleeting, largely throwaway line and construct a competent, feature-length prequel. And it seems the latter is already beginning to formulate another Star Wars story for Disney to consider.
This isn’t the first time that we’ve caught wind of Knoll’s latest pitch – four weeks ago, the producer confirmed that his idea was around 75 percent complete – and when The Hollywood Reporter asked for a status report following the Rogue One Super Session at the National Association of Broadcasters Show, John Knoll noted that he’s still in the process of “tinkering” with his proposal: “It’s maybe 75 percent there. I haven’t pitched it to [Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy]. It’s another Star Wars thing.”
Going off those comments, it seems as though Knoll hasn’t made much progress on the nascent spinoff in the past month or so, but at the very least, fans of Rogue One can take solace in the fact that the producer is still actively pursuing the project in question.
It’s one of many, many Star Wars titles gestating over at Disney, and after reports revealed that the Mouse House has drawn up tentative plans for the next 15 years, give or take, John Knoll reaffirmed that the Powers That Be have no intention of taking the foot off the pedal.
There’s no reason to think Disney is going to stop wanting to make Star Wars movies if there’s quality and there’s interest. It has unlimited potential. It has a huge number of characters, worlds … It’s a massive playground.
That galactic playground will soon expand to include Star Wars: The Last Jedi (December 15th, 2017), before the Han Solo anthology movie and Episode IX zoom into theaters on May 25th, 2018 and May 24th, 2019, respectively.
Published: Apr 28, 2017 10:05 am