Discussion Who Should Direct the Next/Future Star Wars Film(s)?

Me.

 

I reckon my gran would do a good job.

 

Bor and your gran have to fight it out, TDK Joker-tryouts style.

*Mortal Kombat music blares*

 

Why not both? Bor & Gran has a nice ring to it. I'm sure B&G would make a great team. Plus, Gran is also a race of aliens.

 

Whether they like it or not, they’ll just have to Gran and Bor it.

 

Would be most happy if either Cuaron or Villeneuve got a piece of Star Wars in some way.

Without bashing, I just don't have faith in RJ at the helm.

 

Cuaron could definitely be cool. Can't see it happening, personally, he seems a little above directing something in someone elses' trilogy by now, but guess stranger things have happened.

I'd put money on Villeneuve not wanting anything to do with it though. He's tied up for a while with Dune anyway, but even after that...ehh.

 

I would really like a Christopher Nolan take on Star Wars. He could add another, or at least, a different dimension to it. A sort of dark quality.

 

With Michael Caine telling stories about space-Rangoon and some Rodian stealing giant kyber crystals for giggles.

 

He really liked Rogue One, and was vocal about it (including about it being the only SW film to take a different tonal approach), so I think he’s interested in the challenge. But likely only if Lucasfilm let him have his Villeneuvey take on it, and I have a feeling they’re done with that level of experimentation on the big screen. TV would be more likely.

 

Yeah. Keep in mind, Blade Runner 2049 bombed, awesome as it was. I'd assume Dune's probably gonna be the same situation.

Seems it's gonna be a choice between "give him total free reign and have the movie be way too cold & slow-plodding and cerebral for most people to dig it", or "set some boundaries and Denis is probably gonna fight you on it and make the production tricky business".

Might be jumping to conclusions there, just sorta how he strikes me. Love the guy's stuff, but he's probably suited to smaller non-franchise stuff within a studio framework. He delivered bigtime on BR a year or two back, but nobody gave a ****, and it's probably not a great angle to go as far as a type of director.

 

I wouldn't write Dune off with the results of BR49. The original also bombed so it may just be that the mass audience just doesn't like the franchise. His other films have done fairly well given they are low to mid budget. Also the cast for Dune is pretty great.

 

Yeah. Dune has a bit more Box Office potential due to the epicness of the setting and story (BR49 is comparatively small scale). And Dune has a much larger fandom, largely due to thee books. That said, it's Villeneuve. So we shouldn't expect 4-quadrant appeal, or Box Office numbers that break $500 million WW.

 

Does anyone mainstream care about Dune, though? I love the Lynch movie, seem to be one of the few, but I don't know that it all has much pull as an overall brand. Pretty niche stuff, seems to be the people that dig it are the "hard" sci-fi fans.

Sure his take on it will be mega-quality though. That's just a whole different thing to setting the box office on fire, or him being a director who's willing to give a little in a collaboration sense. Even BR, much as it's not an original movie/world from him, seems like he was the unquestioned big-man on. Ridley didn't seem hugely involved outside of a token exec-pro sense, and seems like the producers just kinda let Denis off the chain to do his thing without much in the way of borders or demands. That's not going to be the case at Lucasfilm, obviously, and shouldn't be.

 

It being an established property isn't really needed for it to be a success though. The draw will be the cast and the scale.

 

I...guess. In theory, anyway. Usually stuff that kicks off as an unexpected hit has a certain "fun" factor though, and Dune's not exactly that, pretty slow & dry and head-y.

 

Yeah, I don’t think it’ll reach Star Wars or MCU levels in terms of Box Office. Not even close. But the trailers will be epic, and the cast has some big stars, so I’m guessing it will do better business than BR49. Perhaps by a lot. But not enough to attract Kennedy.

Also, as you say, he isn’t one to be put on a leash, and I doubt Lucasfilm would hire him to direct one of the films. Though I could see him potentially doing something a bit experimental for TV, if Kennedy was feeling creative.

 

They could easily play it off as GoT: In Space.

 

I'm not totally convinced of that - if the Lynch movie taught us anything, it's that the Dune universe can be mined for unexpected levels of high camp - I went to a screening of it in London a couple of years ago, and the audience were rolling in the the aisles. Personally, I love the movie, and the reaction horrified me.

As for Villeneuve - BR2049, although markedly inferior to the original, was probably the best SF film of the last 20 years. Its failure at the box office makes you despair that there's any kind of audience out there for 'proper' SF. I'm more interested to see his take on Dune than more of JJ's take on Star Wars at any rate.

 

I don't even know I'd call BF2049 lesser than the original. Of course the first one has "classic factor" going for it, no way anything coming out now is going to live up to it in that sense, but Villeneuve's stuff has some really frickin' interesting stuff going on there.

 

I think Dune is going to do better than either of you think. The director is well loved, the cast is incredible, and there's already big buzz about it. If he does as well as I expect, the trailer is gonna kill. Marvel and Star Wars have both hit their 'current' series ends; it's going to leave a vacuum that will be able to be filled with other things again, even if only for a short period. I'll go out on a limb and say minimum it's in the top 5 of 2020.

I want to see Filoni do a whole movie. I'd love to see Lucas do a 1 shot.

And I want to see James S.A. Corey write one (yes, I'm aware it's a pen name for 2 people). I only recently realized the two wrote a Legends novel; I'd love to see what they can do with the new continuity; especially since the Expanse series ends on the next book......

 

"Well loved" by critics. The public, generally, doesn't give a ****. His stuff does okay, but he's only really ventured into big mainstream stuff once with BR and it bombed.

You're right that if Dune makes bank it'd put him in a better position for Star Wars. I just can't see it performing, and even so Denis doesn't seem the guy who's going to want to color between the lines of a franchise framework anyway, certainly not someone else's project/trilogy.

I'd be all for Filoni getting something live-action though. Would probably want to wait until he's done a few more of the TV episodes though, like say if Mandalorian goes for a few years and he's got like 10 of them under his belt or something.

 

If there's one thing that's crying out for live-action treatment, it's heli-sabers.

 

Nah. I want a submarine saber.

 

BR2049 is better than we had any right to expect a Bladerunner sequel to be, and it did indeed have some very interesting ideas. But the original is some kind of weird work of voodoo filmmaking magic. It's one of the best things ever put on screen. I believe that Villeneuve himself is aware of this, and the impossibility of equalling it, hence the references to Nabokov's 'Pale Fire' - a novel which is all about creative thievery and reflected genius. I think this is meant to reference both the relationship between the replicants and humanity and his film vs Ridley Scott's. It's just my opinion, though - BR2049 is truly excellent. I see Bladerunner as pure poetry, while BR2049 is more akin to a novel in its structure.