Game of Thrones fans that also have an affinity for Star Wars likely breathed a sigh of relief when the news broke that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the showrunners behind the hit HBO series, had decided to walk away from their proposed trilogy set in a galaxy far, far away. While the official statement released by the duo made it sound as though the decision was amicable and they opted to voluntarily walk away, there’s always the chance that there could be a lot more to the story.
In fact, sources close to We Got This Covered – the same ones who said Marvel was considering recasting Hawkeye and Ewan McGregor was returning as Obi-Wan, both of which we now know to be true – told us that Benioff and Weiss were fired from the franchise, based on the heavily-publicized criticism that dogged the final season of Game of Thrones, as well as the fact that they had little idea on what they actually wanted to do with their trilogy, despite the first installment set to be released in 2022.
While none of this has been officially confirmed as of yet by the studio (and it probably won’t be), there’s a lot of elements that make it sound entirely plausible. For one, Benioff and Weiss came under heavy fire from fans that were left massively disappointed by the culmination of Game of Thrones, with many believing that the show took a sharp nosedive in quality once they were forced to deviate from the source material.
Secondly, Lucasfilm haven’t exactly been shy about replacing filmmakers that don’t fit the studio’s vision for what they want Star Wars to be. Kathleen Kennedy may claim that she loves hearing criticism about the recent movies, but Josh Trank, Colin Trevorrow and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were all removed from the franchise despite having projects in various states of development, while Gareth Edwards was essentially locked out of post-production on Rogue One.
It remains to be seen if the new trilogy will even go ahead as Lucasfilm scrambles to find a new creative team to deliver movies that are already set for 2022, 2024 and 2026. However, from the sounds of things, it doesn’t seem as though Benioff and Weiss have left a lot of material for their eventual replacements to work with.
