In a move I’m not totally surprised by and am convinced there’s a lot more to, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are off their planned Star Wars trilogy. This would’ve been the first stories to take place following the end of the Skywalker Saga, and was heavily rumored to be based on the Knights of the Old Republic video games.
The news was confirmed by Deadline. The reason for Benioff and Weiss’ exit is being blamed on the exclusive deal they recently made with Netflix worth a reported $200M+.
“We love Star Wars,” the pair said in a statement. “When George Lucas built it, he built us too. Getting to talk about Star Wars with him and the current Star Wars team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything.”
“There are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects. So we are regretfully stepping away.”
The duo’s trilogy was announced last year, with Disney giving them release dates of Dec. 16th 2022, Dec. 12th 2024 and Dec. 18th 2026. That’s a lot of territory that needs to be covered now. It’s unlikely they’ll try to move up Rian Johnson’s trilogy as it is only in the earliest stages of development. And what about the project Marvel’s Kevin Feige approached Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy about? Neither of those seem like possibilities at this point.
Fans really turned on Benioff and Weiss during that final Game of Thrones season, not to mention all of the controversy surrounding their shelved Civil War drama series Confederate. I don’t know if Lucasfilm decided the risk of keeping them around too great, and decided to use their busy Netflix schedule as a cover. It seems plausible to me, but as of now there’s no evidence. Just a gut feeling.
So the Star Wars universe continues to be in a state of flux, now more than ever.
