Lucasfilm sued by The Acolyte producer, shelves Star Wars movie ideas

There’s drama afoot in the Star Wars galaxy! To start us off, Variety reports that Ballers producer Karyn McCarthy, who spent a couple of weeks working on the upcoming Star Wars show The Acolyte before getting fired, has filed a wrongful termination suit against Lucasfilm, alleging that she was let go “without explanation, without reason, without justification” after a deal had already been reached. In the words of the complaint:

"As a result of its bad faith and wrongful termination, Defendants deprived Ms. McCarthy significant employment, from which she would have earned millions of dollars over the [life] of the series."

That’s assuming a lot about how successful The Acolyte ends up being, but I guess they can work out the specifics in court. The Acolyte is a Star Wars prequel series set to come out sometime in 2024. Odds are this legal bump in the road won’t change that, but we’ll see.

Lucasfilm shelves Star Wars movies from Kevin Feige and Patty Jenkins

Things are even more chaotic over on the big screen. There hasn’t been a Star Wars movie in theaters since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. Lucasfilm has had some trouble deciding on what project it wants to take on next, and apparently it’s still weighing its options. According to another Variety article, two projects have now been shelved: Patty Jenkins’ starfighter drama Rogue Squadron and another Star Wars movie that Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige was working on.

They aren’t wiping the slate clean, though: a Star Wars movie being worked on by Taika Waititi is still going forward, and reportedly the director is writing a role for himself. Given how often he appears in his own movies — see his Thor films or Jojo Rabbit for examples — that isn’t surprising.

Could Lucasfilm continue the Star Wars sequel trilogy?

When it comes to Star Wars movies, Disney has seemed gun-shy ever since the conclusion of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, probably because reaction within the fandom was so divisive. The Jenkins and Feige projects aren’t the only ones they’ve shelved; once upon a time, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were going to make a Star Wars trilogy, as was The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson. We’ve heard nothing new about those projects in years. Odds are they’re dead in the water.

But discussions are still going on. Speaking to Moovy TV, The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau said that folk at Lucasfilm are trying to figure out what’s next for Star Wars on the big screen…although whether they’re close to making a decision is anyone’s guess:

"There’s definitely a conversation that’s going on. And also what happens after the sequel trilogy, because the sequel trilogy only takes place over the course of a few years. And it’s a big thing on the screen, and it’s very eventful. But it is a relatively brief moment in history over the course of the thousands of years that Star Wars takes place. And so what happens after it is interesting too, and I know that there’s some discussion, exploration going on about what happens after it."

Could Lucasfilm make a Mandalorian movie?

One option is to double down on Din Djarin and Grogu, the stars of The Mandalorian. That show has been very popular. Might we ever see them on the big screen?

“I don’t know what the big plan of everything is, and obviously, there’s so much storytelling happening now in Star Wars,” The Mandalorian director Rick Famuyiwa told The Hollywood Reporter. “There are series, and a lot has happened in the films. So what that all means in terms of how we create things and for what medium has all started to blur. So I wouldn’t be surprised, but I certainly don’t have any inside knowledge about anything that’s happening in that regard. But there’s a large storytelling community within Star Wars that is very active on the series side and continues to be active when it comes to what may be happening with the films moving forward.”

It’s possible Lucasfilm could hit two birds with one stone here. The Mandalorian takes place five years after the end of the original Star Wars trilogy and a while before the sequel trilogy. If they wanted to return to the sequel trilogy timeline on the big screen, maybe using Din and Grogu would be a good way to do it?

Speaking to THR, Star Wars producer Dave Filoni avoiding committing to anything. “Where are they during [the events of the sequel trilogy]?” he asked of Mando and Grogu. “If anything, having made The Clone Wars and weaving a tale so intricately between two movies that were much closer together, I’ve learned that there’s expansive room in this galaxy for us to tell stories and have characters doing things.”

"We’ll just have to wait and see how the story evolves and what makes sense. But in my experience, there’s definitely a way to weave everything together and make it exciting. It’s possible it would never even have to cross over with what we saw [in the sequel trilogy] if the story has us somewhere else."

Andy Serkis would love to play Supreme Leader Snoke again

Another option: exploring the histories of characters who viewers expected to see more of during the sequel trilogy, like Supreme Leader Snoke. In 2015’s The Force Awakens, Snoke was set up as the new big bad in the galaxy, the leader of the fascistic First Order. Fans were shocked when he was killed off in the sequel The Last Jedi, and star Andy Serkis was right there with them.

“Let me just phrase it like this. When I went in to read The Last Jedi, [I spent] the first 30 pages thinking, ‘This is the most incredible character.’ Then I turned the page: ‘And then Snoke gets sliced in half.’ And I was gutted. Gutted,” Serkis told GQ.

"I actually really love that character. And I’m putting it out there: I wouldn’t mind if he came back."

At this point, one thing seems as likely as the next.

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h/t The A.V. Club