Disney has owned both Marvel and Star Wars for a while now, so it’s almost surprising this has taken so long: According to a Hollywood Reporter exclusive, Kevin Feige, lord of the MCU, is going to develop his own Star Wars movie — one that hopefully won’t further enrage the already apparently tetchy George Lucas.
According to THR’s source, Feige met with Kathleen Kennedy, Lucas’ hand-picked president of Lucasfilm, in late summer to discuss his dipping a toe in another part of Disney’s ever-swelling content pool. There, of course, is no word on what type of movie it will be — a prequel, a spin-off, something else — and there likely won’t be until The Rise of Skywalker, aka Episode IX in the main branch of the franchise, comes out mid-December.
There’s been some anxiety around the property of late, with the spin-off/prequel A Solo Story underperforming during the 2018 summer and slightly underwhelming attendance at Disney World’s Galaxy’s Edge (though some postulate that may be due to complex circumstances, such as rising hotel prices and potential attendees’ fears of packed crowds).
And yet there’s clearly more room in the Star Wars inn. There are film projects in the works by Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, plus all the Disney+ shows, boasting the likes of Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi and New German Cinema titan Werner Herzog.
Should Feige indeed board the ship, he’ll come bearing some experience with contemporary blockbusters: He’s overseen the MCU from its infancy, watching as four of its 20-plus titles have entered the Top 10 all-time box office (not adjusted for inflation). Feige may be busy — one reason Sony yanked Spider-Man from the MCU was they felt he was already over-extended to look over their boy — but clearly he’s not too busy to sprinkle some of his magic dust on a franchise that might need it.
(Via THR)
