An old quote may shed some light as to why David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are no longer doing their Star Wars trilogy. Working with Lucasfilm does not seem like an easy task to take on for obvious reasons. Star Wars is one of the biggest franchises in the world with a rabid fan base that treats the material like a religion. It’s safe to say that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy takes her job very seriously when it comes to putting out anything within the franchise with new collaborators.
When it was announced that the Game of Thrones showrunners exited their Star Wars trilogy at Lucasfilm, it really wasn’t all that much of a shock. Over the summer they inked a multi-million dollar deal with Netflix, which would be eating up a lot of their time and energy and was a red flag from the outside perspective. According to a news report, new Lucasfilm collaborators are expected to “stick to the company line,” when working on a Star Wars project and if disagreements are had, one party ends up leaving, as opposed to trying to find common ground. This could be applied to Colin Trevorrow, Phil Lord, and Chris Miller. Now, an old quote is starting to make the rounds, which may confirm the initial new reports as to why David Benioff and D.B. Weiss took off.
An anonymous “movie insider” spoke out at the time of Colin Trevorrow’s firing and is the person responsible for the aforementioned quote. “There’s one gatekeeper when it comes to Star Wars and it’s Kathleen Kennedy. If you rub Kathleen Kennedy the wrong way – in any way – you’re out,” according to the source. You can read the rest of the quote below.
“A lot of these young, new directors want to come in and say, ‘I want to do this. I want to do that.’ A lot of these guys – Lord and Miller, Colin Trevorrow – got very rich, very fast and believed a lot of their own hype. And they don’t want to play by the rules. They want to do sh*t differently. And Kathleen Kennedy isn’t going to f**k around with that.”
At the time of Colin Trevorrow’s firing from what would become The Rise of Skywalker, he had put out The Book of Henry, which was a critical and box office bomb. Many believe the failure of the movie was the final nail in the coffin for Trevorrow, who was reportedly “difficult” to work with. Apparently, Trevorrow is a pretty confident guy and has admitted in the past that directors need a certain amount of arrogance to stay in the game. Could this apply to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss too?
Related: New Star Wars Trilogy Is Only Getting One Movie Written by Game of Thrones Creators?
It’s quite possible that Lucasfilm was simply not into the ideas from the Game of Thrones showrunners. The quote, and the latest report, paint a picture of a restrictive creative environment at Lucasfilm, which has been speculated about for years now. Or, maybe David Benioff and D.B. Weiss weren’t putting their all into the project, we’ll probably really never know. With that being said, Rian Johnson was able to make something risky with The Last Jedi and Kathleen Kennedy still stands by his side and praises his work. So maybe the creative restrictions rumor doesn’t stick. Sometimes relationships just don’t work out and that’s the way it goes. The quote from the anonymous “insider” comes to us from Vulture.
