Currently, the universe Star Wars goes through a truly strange limbo. Although the franchise is still in force thanks to its series on Disney Plus, this December marks 4 years without a film from such a universe. Between cancellations and rumors, a statement that has caught the attention of many is that of David S. Goyer. The scriptwriter responsible for projects such as Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Terminator: Dark Fate revealed that a few years ago he wrote a tape Star Warsand that the Mexican Guillermo del Toro was going to direct it.
The revelation occurred during Goyer’s participation in Happy Sad Confused, podcast by journalist Josh Horowitz. Goyer shared experiences about the trilogy of batman directed by Christopher Nolan, the series Foundationand even The man of steel. At the end of the episode, Horowitz presented him with a hypothetical situation: giving him the “keys” to any universe to do whatever he wanted. And his answer surprised everyone.
“I wrote a Star Wars movie that was never produced, and Guillermo del Toro was going to direct it. That was about four years ago. And I also wrote the script treatment for an origins story about the Jedi. That was set 25 thousand years before the first movie Star Wars. Enter to Star Wars Would have been fun”.
For better or worse, this is not the first time that Guillermo del Toro’s failed involvement in the galactic franchise has been discussed. In 2017, before the release of The last Jedi, the Oscar winner revealed Collider what he had done pitch of some ideas to Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. He mentioned that some characters seemed great to him, but he didn’t show interest in any specific ones. Considering that Goyer wrote the script, in his words, in 2019, perhaps the conversations between del Toro and Kennedy came to fruition. So what happened to cause the film to be cancelled?
““There was a lot going on behind the scenes at Lucasfilm at the time,” Goyer responded sharply. “But it’s a great script. Have you had Guillermo on the program? You have to ask him about that next time. It’s a great script. And there is a lot of art that was produced, which is also great.”
To the surprise of many, Del Toro responded to the revelation through his X account:
“TRUE. I can’t say much. Maybe two letters. ‘J’ and ‘BB’, are those three letters?”wrote the Mexican director. “By the way, this was MANY, MANY moons ago… about 6 years or so…”
Curiously, the times are tied with the complicated period of releases of STar Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). All of them were not exactly well received by critics or audiences. After the closure of the Skywalker saga, there came a restructuring of the saga’s plans, and perhaps Goyer and Del Toro’s film was a victim of this. In fact, we haven’t seen another film project from the franchise since then.
Obviously, speculation has not been long in coming. Many fans theorized what “BB” could mean, but the “J” is easier to guess: Jabba the Hutt. In 2015, the Guadalajara filmmaker mentioned his desire to address an origin story for the character in an interview with Yahoo! movies:
“This is not a fact, it is just me as a geek fat man talking about it,” Del Toro said. “[Con Star Wars] I would make a kind of Godfather saga [sobre lo que] Jabba the Hutt had to do to gain control. One, because he is the character that is most similar to me and others, because I like him. I love the idea of a mafia-style Hutt, a complex final blow. “I’m fascinated by that character.”
Recently, del Toro attended a special screening of Pacific Titans in IMAX 3D for its 10th anniversary. There, Collider He moderated a question and answer session where the topic Star Wars came up. After the aforementioned comments from David S. Goyer, the director finally had the opportunity to express his feelings about what he planned to do with the galactic franchise. Apparently, he had very ambitious ideas, but the future of said film was never really in his hands.
“We had the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy. We were doing a lot of things, and then it wasn’t my priority, it’s not my money; suddenly it is one of the 30 scripts that are forgotten. Sometimes I’m bitter, sometimes I’m not. I always turn to my team and say, ‘Good practice, guys. Good practice. We design a great world. We design cool things. We learned. You can never be ungrateful with life. Whatever life sends your way, there is something to learn from it. So, you know, I trust the universe, I do. When something doesn’t happen, I say: ‘Why?’ I try to have a dialogue with myself. ‘Why didn’t it happen?’ And the more you swim against the current of the universe, the less you will realize where you are going.
Although working with Guillermo del Toro is something that any studio would want, it is understandable that his universe film Star Wars will not come to fruition. Although no one doubts his talent, when he ventured into the world of the greats blockbusters It didn’t have the best results. A few years before, Pacific Titans he barely managed to recover his budget. It was a $190 million dollar production that, despite good reviews, did not generate the expected profits.
Curiously, the spin-offs of Star Wars They have not had the best luck either. The film centered on Han Solo was one of the loudest failures of 2018. And although stories like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka and The Boba Fett book They came directly to Disney Plus, their audience levels were not notable either. Even Andorwhich comes from a successful film (RogueOne), struggled to find a solid audience.
Without a doubt, Guillermo del Toro could have brought great quality to the franchise led by Kathleen Kennedy, but would the success have been enough for what is expected from a saga like this?
Juan Jose Cruz I am one of those who always defended Robert Pattinson as Batman and can see the same movie in the cinema up to 7 times. My guilty taste? Low-budget horror films.