Disney and Lucasfilm announced today that Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will write and produce a new series of Star Wars films.
The new series will be completely separate from the “episodic Skywalker saga” as well as the new trilogy being developed by The Last Jedi writer and director Rian Johnson.
“David and Dan are some of the best storytellers working today,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “Their command of complex characters, depth of story and richness of mythology will break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting.”
“In the summer of 1977 we traveled to a galaxy far, far away, and we’ve been dreaming of it ever since,” Benioff and Weiss said in a joint statement. “We are honored by the opportunity, a little terrified by the responsibility, and so excited to get started as soon as the final season of Game of Thrones is complete.”
With Game of Thrones winding down, Benioff and Weiss were expected to launch a new HBO series called Confederate. The series would be similar to Amazon’s Man in the High Castle where the Nazis and the Japanese won World War II. However, in this series, the Confederacy and Union come to a stalemate at the end of the American Civil War and slavery is still legal. In fact, Deadline notes the show would have actually involved a “third American Civil War in an alternate reality.” Once the plot was released, it quickly became controversial and Twitter hashtags were generated opposing the show. HBO CEO Richard Plepler said, We screwed up in an important way. … Where we screwed up was we tried to explain a complicated subject in a press release in three paragraphs.”
Since then there hasn’t been word on whether Confederate would continue at HBO. Given the Star Wars announcement today, it’s more than likely the show was shelved allowing Benioff and Weiss time to join Disney’s Star Wars juggernaut.
Disney did not provide any information on what the series will be about, where it will take place, or when we can expect to see the first installment. However, it does appear they will be getting to work on it quickly as Benioff and Weiss noted they will begin “as soon as the final season of Game of Thrones is complete.” The final season of Game of Thrones is expected to air its first episode in April 2019. It’s more than likely we won’t see anything from this new Star Wars series until 2020 at the earliest.
Are you excited about the new Star Wars series from the creators of Game of Thrones?