Scrapped Star Wars Spinoff Would Have Returned to Tatooine
Part of Disney’s big plans when the studio first announced that it had acquired the rights to the Star Wars universe was that it would feature new standalone films that worked as anthology movies — movies that would star new and fan-favorite characters alike, to widen the scope of the franchise.
It started with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and continued with the Han Solo origin story Solo: A Star War Story. However, the latter’s disappointing performance at the box-office following its release at the start of summer 2018 has led to Disney putting the breaks on plans for future anthology movies. Right now, there are no current Star Wars movies in active development other than J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX, and there have been no official announcements of more anthology films.
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Now, we find out that not only are these movies on hold, some may have even been scrapped altogether. Speaking with Cinema Blend, Star Wars production designer Neil Lamont revealed that a certain upcoming project that was abruptly brought to a halt would have featured a return to Luke Skywalker’s adoptive planet, Tatooine. “We were just starting our work on another Star Wars spin-off,” Lamont said. “We were actually just making our mark on Tatooine — which would have been interesting and some other new galaxies. So hopefully, if that comes back, we’ll get the chance to be able to do that further.”
It’s unclear which Star Wars spin-off Lamont is referring to here. The ending of Solo: A Star Wars Story appeared to setup a possible sequel that would have seen Han and Chewie travel to Tatooine. It had also been recently rumored that Logan director James Mangold had been tapped to direct a solo Boba Fett movie, a character who met his end on the desert planet in Return of the Jedi. Plus, the rumored solo Obi-Wan Kenobi film could have also shown what the character was up to while keeping watch over Luke Skywalker.
All of these films could be the one Lamont was working on. Sadly, we’ll have to wait and see what Disney and Lucasfilm are planning next to find out if any of these movies ever actually happen.
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Directed by Ron Howard, Solo: A Star Wars Story stars Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover, Emilia Clarke, Joonas Suotamo, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paul Bettany, and Woody Harrelson. The film will receive a digital release on Sept. 14 before hitting Blu-ray and DVD on Sept. 25. After that, it will be a long wait for another new Star Wars film: directed by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: Episode IX will release in December 2019. The film stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant.
