Lucasfilm reportedly hit the pause button on, or possibly totally scrapped, pre-production work for aStar Warsspin-off that would have seen a return to the planet Tatooine. This news comes directly fromSoloproduction designer Neil Lamont, who was part of the crew working on this mystery spin-off. Unfortunately, Lucasfilm stepped in and stopped the work, which almost certainly had a lot to do with the performance of and reception toSolo: A Star Wars Story.
To date, the Han Solo standalone hasn’t even crossed the $400 million mark at the worldwide box office. For aStar Warsmovie, that’s downright amazing. Not to mention that the production budget ballooned as Ron Howard wound up reshooting the vast majority of the movie after Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired. Point being, this is anything but a success for Disney and Lucasfilm, which has forced them to rethink their strategy a bit moving forward. In a recent interview, Neil Lamont reveals that thinking got in the way of whatever spin-off they were preparing to shoot. Here’s what he had to say about it.
“We were just starting our work on another Star Wars spin-off and yeah. We were actually just making our mark onTatooine, which would have been interesting and some other new galaxies. So hopefully, if that comes back, we’ll get the chance to be able to do that further.”
The fact of the matter is Lucasfilm is being rather quiet in terms of what theirfuture plans for a galaxy far, far awayare at this time. All we know for sure is thatStar Wars 9is currently in production under the direction of J.J. Abrams and is set to hit theaters in December 2019. Beyond that, no official titles have been announced and the studio doesn’t have anything slated for release. That makes it tough to know exactly what Neil Lamont, who also served as production designer onRogue Oneand was an assistant on the set ofReturn of the Jedi, was talking about.
However, we can speculate a bit.James Mangold is attached to a Boba Fettmovie. That could easily see Tatooine as a setting. Though, it seems like, if that movie is even still in the cards, that it would be years away and not already in pre-production. The most likely candidate? The often discussed, highly-demanded Obi-Wan movie, which would bring back Ewan McGregor following the events ofRevenge of the Sithand preceding the events ofA New Hope. Not only has this project been rumored for years, but it would without question take place largely on Tatooine.
Just recently, Ewan McGregor once again confirmed that there are no plans for theObi-Wan Kenobistandalone right now, even though he would be very happy to do it. There is also an outside chance that this could have been related toSolo 2, which was set up but clearly isn’t going to be happening now. We may never know what this was. Then again, maybe Lucasfilm will revive the project at a later date. For now, all we can do is hopelessly speculate and wonder. This news comes to us courtesy ofCinemaBlend.
