Less than 48 hours after reports emerge that Game of Thrones writing duo David Benioff and Dan Weiss had exited their Star Wars project. New details from two Hollywood trades emerge giving us insight on their exit.
As we know, Monday night when the original report dropped the duo cited their commitment to their multi-million dollar deal with Netflix as the reason they had to drop the project.
The Hollywood Reporter dropped a new article today, and they say that their exit has been brewing since August when Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy heard Benioff and Weiss signed their Netflix deal, which made her unhappy. She also believed they wouldn’t be able to juggle both their Netflix project and their Star Wars trilogy.
While the duo signed their deal with Netflix they were working on a treatment for Disney and Lucasfilm with the pair committed to penning at least one of the films, even though the original deal was to write all three. Their ambitious plan was to explore a period in which the Jedi came to exist.
Read: New Character Posters For ‘The Mandalorian’ Debut
Kennedy was also said to be nervous regarding the duos exit as they have become the latest high profile filmmakers to exit a Star Wars franchise joining Josh Trank for the scrapped Boba Fett film, Colin Trevorrow for Rise of Skywalker, Miller & Lord for Solo: A Star Wars Story, and the Rogue One Edwards/Gilroy troubles.
Benioff and Weiss were also reportedly nervous about “toxic fandom” according to sources, and began having second thoughts regarding Star Wars. The duo had a successful run with Game of Thrones bringing it to critical and fab success.
Sadly, the final season of Thrones was met with backlash throughout social media and with having seen how Star Wars fans (trolls) have bullied actors off social media and taken aim at filmmakers like Rian Johnson, a source tells the trade “Who wants to go through that again? Not them… this was in the ‘Life’s Too Short’ category.”
According to Variety, Not helping was a corporate culture invites little creative independence and is willing to replace new fresh helmers that don’t conform to the company line with old standbys who do as they’re told. The high rate of turnover and the lack of a real direction for the franchise overall post-Skywalker is also inspiring questions and concerns, though sources say Kennedy’s job is secure.
“It was a hard quit” says a source. Netflix reportedly learned of Benioff and Weiss’ Star Wars departure mere days before news broke Monday. Lucasfilm is now actively looking to enlist new filmmakers and reportedly it’s unlikely that Kevin Feige’s proposed Star Wars project will be moved into that December 2022 release date.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter & Variety
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