‘Star Wars’ Fans, Lucasfilm, and director Gareth Edwards (‘Godzilla’) potentially exhaled a sigh of relief recently, as rumor has it that writer Simon Kinberg (‘X-Men: Days of Future Past‘) has been tapped to step in as the writer for the upcoming ‘Star Wars’ standalone, a job which had recently been left by writer Gary Whitta (‘Book of Eli’).
Bringing in Kinberg almost seems like a no-brainer, hence why the rumor is basically already accepted as true, even though Lucasfilm nor the reps for Kinberg have officially confirmed the news. The writer was already on the Lucasfilm payroll to write one of the stand-alone films, has already worked in the ‘Star Wars’ universe on ‘Star Wars: Rebels,’ and his street cred as a writer who can come in and polish off/ save scripts is well established, especially in light of his involvement in writing last year’s ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past,’ which revitalized that franchise and was one of the biggest hits of 2014. All of which make him a great choice to come in and finish the draft Whitta left behind and get the movie ready for shooting, a production that will take place at Pinewood Studios once the Bond crew is finished shooting ‘Spectre’ there.
For anyone curious, the movie is supposed to be set right before the original ‘Star Wars: A New Hope,’ and would tell the story of a group of bounty hunters stealing the plans for the first Death Star. The story supposedly would feature the Millenium Falcon (though no Han Solo), and one of the primary bounty hunters would be a character introduced in ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens,’ leading many to speculate that it will be a younger incarnation of Max Von Sydow’s character due to the age of the older actor.
Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available, and lets hope they manage to get everything settled and sorted so the spin-off can make it’s December 2016 deadline!
Source: Slashfilm
