When Disney acquired Lucasfilm, plans were put in place for both a new trilogy and a number of familiar characters taking centre stage in their own movies. Unsurprisingly, Boba Fett was among them, and a number of filmmakers were eyed to helm that project, including Josh Trank (Chronicle) and, later, James Mangold (Logan).
Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Days of Future Past) was initially tasked with penning Boba Fett's screenplay, though the project fell apart when Trank was dismissed following clashes with the writer and producer on Fantastic Four. That left Mangold to step in and his approach was to place the bounty hunter in a one-off spaghetti Western in the vein of Sergio Leone.
In fact, the Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director has since explained, "I was probably scaring the shit out of everyone. But I was making much more of a borderline, rated R, single-planet spaghetti Western. They probably would never be able to embrace Baby Yoda if I had made that."
"[It] didn’t really belong in the world I was kind of envisioning. I was just listening to Ennio Morricone all day, all night, and typing away. I’m not sure it ever would have happened, I’m not sure it was in anyone’s plans what I was thinking."
Sounds pretty cool, right?
Kinberg, however, doesn't believe that Mangold's darker vision for the project would have ever moved forward at Disney. "I was gonna write the Boba Fett movie," he tells Polygon (via SFFGazette.com). "I mean, it’s all pretty sci-fi, but I think ['hard' sci-fi] is the right word. Tonally like Logan. On the edge of R-rated, though I don’t think you’d have a Star Wars movie that could be R-rated."
The Dark Phoenix helmer wasn't attached when Magold came on board, but he had been tasked with helping shape the direction Star Wars was heading in under Kathleen Kennedy's watch. As X-Men fans will surely agree, it's for the best that didn't last but Kinberg says he was part of a "kind of mini writers room" tasked with "[coming] up and [breaking] ideas and stories."
"I think over time, my role morphed as a friend of the court. And so it ranged from being a consultant on the movies, give thoughts, notes, sometimes actual pages for scripts, and obviously co-creating Star Wars Rebels and really staying with that show that I loved."
Dave Filoni typically gets the lion's share of credit for Rebels and there's a good reason for that. While Kinberg played a significant role in the creation of the animated series, the Ahsoka showrunner was the one who ultimately shaped it into the beloved hit it's since become.
Do you think Boba Fett should have received his own movie in place of Disney+'s The Book of Boba Fett? Let us know in the comments section.