One of the signature moves of the Star Wars franchise under the Disney banner has been the sheer volume of filmmakers to have come and gone in an instant, leaving countless film and television titles rotting in the depths of development hell.
For the most part, whenever the sci-fi saga generates bad buzz, Kathleen Kennedy is always the first one to take the blame, which is fair enough when she’s the one steering the ship at Lucasfilm. With three new features announced yesterday – and no sign of Taika Waititi – fans have plenty to chew on in the coming years.
In an interview with ComicBook at the second day of the Star Wars Celebration event, the studio president opined on her process of deciding which projects make the cut, but it doesn’t really make a great deal of sense.
“You know, it really comes down to the development process. As you know, it’s an ever evolving thing and it’s pretty straightforward. We get scripts in, we’re working with really talented people. We spend the time talking about it. ‘Is it getting there? Is it ready?’
It’s not a mystery to how it works. So, you know, we’ve even got things that we’ve been developing for a long, long time that could see the light of day. We just don’t know exactly when. And, with talented people too. We’ve got a lot of people that are, you know, managing very busy schedules because they’re talented unfortunately. But, you know, that’s what we’re always juggling.”
If it was really as easy as that, then how do you explain Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Solo, Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly’s Episode IX, Fantastic Four director Josh Trank’s film, Game of Thrones duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s contributions, Rian Johnson’s trilogy, the airborne adventure from Devotion‘s J.D. Dillard, Stephen Daldry’s Obi-Wan Kenobi Anthology flick, Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron, or Kevin Feige’s mysteriously abandoned effort to name but a small few?
They were all on the cards, announced to the world, and then ultimately scrapped by Kennedy, who can’t seem to make her mind up with any degree of consistency.