On the eve of one major Star Wars film launch, fans learned that the Disney and Lucasfilm empire have yet another iconic-character project in the works: a Boba Fett film.
The and , each citing their own “sources,” reported the film’s ongoing development on Thursday, and they were able to attach two big names to the project: director and co-writer James Mangold, who previously helmed and , and co-writer/producer Simon Kinberg, a producer with major credits on and recent X-Men films.
This hard confirmation was put into context by the Hollywood press. Both outlets also mentioned in the same breath that a standalone Obi-Wan Kenobi film, which they reported being in development back in August, still doesn’t have a writer attached.
The character of Boba Fett has long enjoyed a Star Wars cult following due to his silent-and-violent existence as a bounty hunter in the series’ original trilogy. Up until this point, however, Fett’s ability to speak and carry a story has remained largely the territory of Star Wars novels. And there have been a of them, including a ’90s trilogy of novels by K.W. Jeter and a six-part young-adult series that took place between Episodes II and III of the prequel trilogy.
As we learned in 2014, Disney and Lucasfilm largely ignore that book-driven canon, so there’s no telling whether any of those books’ details will carry over to whatever Mangold puts together… or whether Mangold will make it to the end of production.
All other possible details, including production timelines, plot hints, and casting decisions, are still unknown at this time. Mangold is currently in a pre-production process for a racing-history film about Ford and Ferrari’s ’60s showdowns at Le Mans, starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale.
The number of potential films projects is now quite staggering, as we already officially know about a Rian Johnson trilogy, a trilogy from ‘ showrunners, and a live-action TV series written produced by Jon Favreau. Need to keep up with Quentin Tarantino’s preferred space franchise, we suppose.
