Celebrity: ‘Star Wars’ spinoffs on hold after ‘Solo’ flop

I feel a great disturbance in the Force.

After the poor box office performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story, sources have told Collider that Lucasfilm and Disney are pressing pause on all future Star Wars standalone stories.

In the lead up to Solo, which focused on the adventures of a young Han Solo before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, reports were swirling that Lucasfilm and Disney execs were planning spinoff stories on the feared bounty hunter Boba Fett as well as one on Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry attached to direct.

Talk of a solo film dedicated to Boba Fett started to bubble up in 2013, with Fantastic Four director Josh Trank inked to take the reins. But in 2016, Disney bosses announced that the contract with Trank had been terminated as a result of his allegedly erratic behaviour on the set of Fantastic Four. The project was revived this year with Logan director and James Mangold and X-Men scribe Simon Kinberg on board to develop the Boba Fett standalone.

Now sources have told Collider that the studio is now going to concentrate on next year’s Star Wars: Episode IX, which will finish the story of Rey (Daisy Ridley), as well as what the next trilogy of Star Wars films will be. Of course, this might all just be a rumour, and there’s also a chance that the ideas being kicked around for Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi will be too irresistible to pass up.

In February, Lucasfilm announced that Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are going to write and produce a new Star Wars series.

In addition, Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson is also going to spearhead a new trio of films that may hit theatres as early as 2020.

In an interview with the Sun last year, Johnson said his new saga will feature all-new characters.

“The idea is one story told over three movies,” Johnson said. “(We will) get to some new places, meet new people. It’s a fresh kind of start… to me the whole exciting thing about it is: Let’s explore a new corner of the galaxy!”

Following 2016’s Rogue One, Solo was Lucasfilm’s second A Star Wars Story spinoff, but facing stiff competition from Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War, it failed make an impact at the box office.

The film netted US$84.4 million in its opening frame and has grossed US$196.2 million in North America (and US$343.3 million worldwide) since its release on May 25.

After Lucasfilm and Disney rebooted the Star Wars franchise in 2015 with The Force Awakens, all the Star Wars titles have grossed well over a billion.

With a rumoured budget north of US$300 million, Solo, which saw its original directors fired and replaced by screen vet Ron Howard, will likely lose a couple hundred mill.

If you seen it, the ending of Solo set up Darth Maul, one of the lone bright spots in George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, as a major villain in any proposed (and now highly unlikely) sequels.

As Han Solo, Alden Ehrenreich earned acclaim from critics and fans. Original star Harrison Ford was effusive in his praise, while Donald Glover, who played a young Lando Calrissian, told the Sun that Alden “just stepped up and really gave a Han that I enjoy watching so much.”

But until Solo, Ehrenreich had only appeared in smaller movies, so perhaps audiences weren’t as familiar with him.

The failure could also be blamed on the marketing. I think they shouldn’t have kept Darth Maul out of the early adverts for Solo. Trailers for Rogue One in 2016 showed off Darth Vader’s presence and I think that helped ensure lineups at the box office opening day.

Another reason the standalone may have failed — too much Star Wars.

Last Jedi, which opened six months ago, earned a healthy $1.3 billion, but that’s still $700 million less than Force Awakens. Until Solo, new Star Wars movies had been coming up every December and that seemed to be working fine. So had Lucasfilm and Disney held the feature until the end of the year, maybe the results would have been different.

One thing is for certain — and I’m including myself here — no one saw Solo’s box office implosion coming. The movie has a 71% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and in our review we praised the chemistry between the leads and the large-scale action.

When we spoke to Glover at a recent press day in California, there was already chatter of a sequel and even a spinoff for Lando.

“I just hope (any future movies) are going to continue with what this movie does and that’s: Be fun,” Glover said when asked about Solo 2. “That’s all I want. I just want to have fun and go on these adventures like those Amblin films in the ’80s. Those were always my favourite. Where big ideas played in a reality that we recognize is so much fun.”

Sadly, it looks like Darth Maul’s surprise appearance toward the end of Solo will be a cliffhanger, the outcome of which fans will debate about for years to come, but get no resolution for on the big screen.

Twitter: @markhdaniell
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