Lucasfilm has found great success on Disney+ with TV shows like The Mandalorian and Andor, but it's a different story on the big screen. The last time we sat down to watch a Star Wars movie in theaters was 2019's The Rise of Skywalker, a conclusion to a trilogy that disappointed the vast majority of fans.
We had been excited for Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron, but that's fallen apart alongside planned trilogies from Rian Johnson and the Game of Thrones showrunners. Meanwhile, movies from Taika Waititi, Shawn Levy, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige (among many others) also appear no closer to becoming a reality.
Now, we can add another failed project to the list.
According to Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic podcast (via SFFGazette.com), Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends director David Gordon Green was also developing a Star Wars movie for Lucasfilm at one time. However, it appears the studio chose to part ways with the filmmaker after his 2021 horror sequel was met with mostly negative reviews.
The scooper explains that "Green was trying to get a Star Wars movie off the ground" prior to Halloween Kills' release, and despite the filmmaker's hopes to the contrary, his Star Wars project is now a "non-starter particularly given how poorly those Halloween sequels seemed to go over."
Once upon a time, Green would have been a thrilling choice to take the helm of a Star Wars movie (particularly if it was horror-based), but those Halloween sequels really did fall off a cliff and seemed to indicate that a franchise as big as this would be too much for him.
It's crucial Lucasfilm get the next Star Wars movie right and there are even rumblings that Kathleen Kennedy's job hinges on her getting that ready for 2025...and ensuring it's a hit, of course. Disney is literally losing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars by leaving the Star Wars franchise on the shelf and it's hard to fathom why we've been waiting this long for a new movie.
Stay tuned for updates.