Discussion Gary Whitta is no longer writer for spinoff movie.

do you mean this
There are shuffles and changes happening behind-the-scenes at Star Wars, I'm hearing, and the first one has become official: Gary Whitta has left the standalone Star Wars movie, scheduled for Decemeber 2016.
http://badassdigest.com/2015/01/10/help-wanted-new-writers-in-a-galaxy-far-far-away/

 

The other one is probably Josh Trank. There are some things happening with him and Fox on Fantastic Four, but if that will affect Star Wars is up in the air.

But with Whitta being dropped, it's a strong possibility that Disney/LFL will want to avoid any potential issues with him and drop him as well.

 

Trank seems like a ticking time bomb.

 

Telling ya: If Trank gets dropped; Duncan Jones doesn't seem to have anything on the docket

 

Duncan Jones would be the near-perfect choice Zuckuss The Ruckuss, but I wouldn't be surprised if we get a Peyton Reed/Ant-Man situation.

Best case scenario is that the first spin-off is delayed until early 2017.

 

The only issue with Duncan Jones is that he may want a pretty firm say on the script. In fact, he may want to write something himself.

 

Which will not at all fly with Disney.

Disney-Marvel (and by current extension Lucasfilm) is notorious for clashing with hands-on directors and seems to prefer fairly safe, malleable choices.

Jones is a very funky, personalized director (not unlike Rian Johnson), so he's probably a very unlikely choice.

 

Yes. Also, Faraci was wondering on Twitter why Lucasfilm hasn't announced Rian Johnson for Episode 8 yet. Could JJ be coming back?

 

I saw that, he was wondering about if Johnson was confirmed and if there were any SW movies beyond VII that were dated.

 

I hope not, I'm really looking forward to Johnson's interpretation of Episode VIII.

 

From what I understand Abrams doesn't want to come back as a director and Disney is happy to oblige. Abrams wants to be more involved in the producing side of things(allows him to work on other projects). So, I would expect Bad Robot to come back...

I think the reason why he hasn't been announced:

a)He is currently writing the episode 8 screenplay. His directing gig may be tentatively tied to that.
B)I think Lucasfilm doesn't want to jump ahead. I think they are team Abrams until episode 7 is released.

 

Faraci also started that BS lie that JJ quit Episode VII that Lucasfilm actually had to debunk themselves. He hates JJ, probably because Abrams doesn't allow set visits and thus Faraci's ego gets bruised.

He also may not like Johnson much because he trolls Faraci all the time on Twitter due to Faraci's anti-Star Wars stance towards fans.

The Johnson announcement was shelved purely for Ep7 PR reasons.

 

Not that I like Faraci, but what he said about Abrams have doubts about the project does not sound like a crazy idea when Arndt left (probably due to some differences with JJ) and Abrams not mentioned as being part of the Ep. VIII crew (I was expecting him to be producer).

 

I think Abrams being on Episode VII was a result of LFL trying to make Iger feel better about his new $4.2 billion toy by getting a big name to kick off the new movies. Then they'd get lesser known directors for the rest.

 

So you think it is safe not to expect any Abrams involvement in the next two episodes? And Kasdan?

 

Don't know about Kasdan, but I wouldn't expect Abrams to come back.

 

Except as a producer. No way Bad Robot isn't getting a slice of this pie.

 

Simon Kinberg is Whitta's replacement on the Star Wars spinoff according to slashfilm.

 

Kinberg's worked in the X-Men franchise, 2009's Sherlock Holmes, and Star Wars: Rebels and the upcoming The Fantastic Four film.

I would bet my left egg that this is true.

He feels like a much more natural (and logical) fit.

 

Makes sense. Seems like he could be the new Kasdan when it comes to SW.

 

He already said some time ago he was writing one of the standalones.

 

Yeah it has been confirmed that Kasdan and Kinberg are writing their own spinoffs... although we don't know what's changed...

 

It makes sense for Kinberg to work on the first spinoff since he's basically the story guy. He'll probably work on Kasdan's too.

 

I like Kinberg even less than Whitta lol

 

I'm totally cool with the writer of Brokeback Mutants writing the spin off