Nowadays, it feels like every movie has to be part of a franchise, or based on a book, or an adaptation of some cultural icon. It’s harder and harder to find truly original stories, but they’re there if you look for them. That’s why it’s so interesting when movies start development as part of an existing Intellectual Property, but then get retooled into original movies for one reason or another. For example, District 9 began as a Halo movie, but was later changed into its own story.
Now, a recently-revealed canceled Star Wars movie is getting similarly spun off — in a way that could interrupt a long-held curse for similar projects.
Paul King and Simon Farnaby have made a name for themselves with feel-good movies like Paddington and Paddington 2.
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In a recent interview with Variety, screenwriter Simon Farnaby discussed his long partnership with writer/director Paul King, and the success they found after the release of the massively popular Paddington 2. Apparently, one of the offers they received was from Lucasfilm. The two began working on a droid-centered story, but apparently it didn’t have much to do with Star Wars as a whole.
“They were like, we really need it to be a Star Wars movie, which is probably why it didn’t get turned into a Star Wars movie!” Farnaby said. That wouldn’t have been his first Star Wars movie, either — he played Blue Squadron pilot Farns Monsbee in Rogue One.
But buried in this tidbit is an interesting reveal: apparently, this movie idea will be reworked as something else, though there was no word on whether that was a movie or a TV series.
Simon Farnaby previously played Rebel pilot Farns Monsbee in Rogue One.
Lucasfilm
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In theory, this story will be the latest in a long line of projects that either sought to be a Star Wars story and were retooled into an original tale or an original tale that was meant to capitalize on Star Wars’ success. The most recent movie in the first category is Rebel Moon, which was Zack Snyder’s pitch for a Star Wars saga retooled into a completely different world.
But there are plenty of other examples of the latter, like The Creator, Starcrash, Battle Beyond the Stars, or, arguably, the 1978 Battlestar Galactica.
But this project actually has greater potential than its predecessors. The best parts of a King/Farnaby movie aren’t what it borrows from its source material, but what it adds. That’s why their most successful movies, like Paddington 2 and Wonka, only lightly take from their inspirations. (Their next movie, by the way, is centered around Labubus, a toy with almost no source material at all.)
Free from the constrictions of Star Wars lore, this original movie could actually be better off. Without needing to fit into a half-century of lore, these two writers could embrace the whimsy that makes their movies arguably better than Citizen Kane. Only time will tell — we may eventually get the best Star Wars movie that never was.
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