A Quiet Place screenwriters told Lucasfilm to start new franchises during Star Wars pitch meeting
By Dan Selcke
It’s no secret that Hollywood has a bit of an originality problem. Take Star Wars, for instance. Obviously the brand is beloved, but do we really need this many new movies and shows? After The Rise of Skywalker comes out in December, we have a new trilogy of Star Wars movies coming from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, and another from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss. And while we wait for that, we have at least three Star Wars TV shows coming to Disney+: The Mandalorian, a show about Cassian Andor, and another about Obi-Wan Kenobi. I enjoy a good Star War as much as the next guy, but that’s…a lot.
But stuff like this keeps happening because it works, and businesses stick to what works. But should they? And if not, who’s going to tell them not to?
That’s why this story is so interesting. Speaking to Movieweb, screenwriters Scott Beck and Bryan Woods talked about a meeting they had with Lucasfilm not long after the release of A Quiet Place, which was the rare blockbuster movie based on an entirely original idea. As the writers of A Quiet Place, naturally some of the higher-ups in the movie industry were interested in meeting with Beck and Woods to pick their brains. “We went into Lucasfilm in the wake of ‘A Quiet Place’ and they wanted to talk to us about ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Star Wars,’” said Woods. “And we’re like, ‘We wanna talk to you about what is ‘Star Wars’ before it was ‘Star Wars?’ You guys have a responsibility to start a new franchise. That’s where our hearts have always been, just trying to create original ideas.’”
That’s a pretty ballsy thing to say to a bunch of high-powered movie executives, no? On the one hand, I see where Woods is coming from. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that Lucasfilm and Disney have a “responsibility” to create new franchises, but I could certainly stand to see more original stuff, and I don’t imagine the execs hear that viewpoint very often.
On the other hand, why even take the meeting if you had to intention of entertaining the offer? Did they do it just to speak up for people who want to see new stuff? Opinions are welcome.
“Without giving away too much it was simply ruminating on if we did an ‘Indiana Jones’ movie, what would we want to see in ‘Indiana Jones?’” Beck remembered. “Or if we did a ‘Star Wars’ movie, what’s that chapter of the whole universe that we would want to see? So it very much was an open canvas talk. It started going down the line a little bit but, again, as Bryan said, it’s just not our DNA. We would rather create what the next ‘Indiana Jones’ could be.”
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Beck and Woods’ next movie is Haunt, a haunted house drama. It is, naturally, entirely original. It’s in theaters today.
Meanwhile, A Quiet Place may go on to become a franchise, ironically. There’s a sequel in development, although Beck and Woods didn’t write the screenplay; that honor went to John Krasinski, who directed and starred in the original film.
Next. First look at a new villain in The Last Kingdom season 4. dark
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