Today, ‘Game of Thrones’ now-infamous showrunners, David Benioff & D. B. Weiss have decided to exit their work on a planned trilogy of ‘Star Wars’ films set apart from the Skywalker saga, whose finale is releasing in December with ‘The Rise of Skywalker’. In August, the pair announced they had signed a nine-figure show deal with streaming giant Netflix, and that seems to be the catalyst that has caused the pair to exit their planned trilogy.
In a statement to Deadline Hollywood, the pair stated that “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. We love Star Wars. When George Lucas built it, he built us too. Getting to talk about Star Wars with him was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything.”
The planned 2022 release date for the start of the pair’s trilogy is now up in the air. We are yet to discover if ‘The Last Jedi’ director, Rian Johnson’s planned trilogy will take up that slot or an entire new trilogy with a new director will take that slot. Lucasfilm president, Kathleen Kennedy signed D&D back in February of 2018 in the wake of many firings, including the June 2017 exit of Phil Lord and Chris Miller from Solo: A Star Wars Story and the September 2017 dismissal of Colin Trevorrow as director of Episode IX in the Skywalker saga, now helmed by J. J. Abrams.
Since the much-criticized final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ aired, many Star Wars fans were concerned with the direction that the new trilogy would take at the hands of Benioff & Weiss as well as, would they be competent enough to helm a Star Wars movie? A franchise that since 1977, changed filmmaking and pop culture forever and has a very loyal, hardcore fanbase that are quite vocal about their feelings and opinions towards the Star Wars brand.
Fan reaction on social media has been met with relief but mostly confusion. Confusion because many online believe that D&D rushed the final season of Game of Thrones so they could work on Star Wars, and aren’t even working on it anymore. Kennedy commented on the departure stating that, “David Benioff and Dan Weiss are incredible storytellers. We hope to include them in the journey forward when they are able to step away from their busy schedule to focus on Star Wars”.