When many Star Wars fans had their worst fears confirmed when it was revealed Taika Waititi’s contribution to the franchise remained in active development and on course for the big screen, it came with the caveat that projects being spearheaded by Wonder Woman‘s Patty Jenkins and Marvel Cinematic Universe head honcho Kevin Feige had bitten the dust.
The waters became even more muddied at Star Wars Celebration, though, when Kathleen Kennedy outright denied that Feige had been working on a standalone blockbuster set in a galaxy far, far away, even though it had previously been discussed in a very public forum by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness scribe Michael Waldron, who’d been tapped to pen the screenplay.
Throwing even more fuel onto the fire that’s flying directly in the face of the words to come out of the Lucasfilm president’s mouth, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo offered on the Smartless podcast that they’d even discussed the Star Wars epic with Feige.
“We love Star Wars. There were early conversations, there were some early conversations with us. Kevin Feige is a huge Star Wars fan, and there were some early conversations about maybe teaming up with Kevin to do Star Wars.”
In short, Waldron and now the Russos have made it clear they’d at the very least spoken to Feige about Star Wars, which sort of blows holes in Kennedy’s adamant position that it was never a viable option on the table. Maybe it’s just damage limitation, seeing as the prospect of the most successful producer in history tackling another of the industry’s most iconic IPs sounds like a big one that somehow managed to get away.