It’s a big day for Star Wars news, as Disney has confirmed that Game of Thrones creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff are no longer attached to their previously announced Star Wars trilogy of movies.
“We love Star Wars,” they said in a statement to Deadline. “When George Lucas built it, he built us too. Getting to talk about Star Wars with him and the current Star Wars team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything.”
The first Star Wars movie in the new trilogy from Weiss and Benioff was expected to premiere in 2022 (with sequels in 2024 and 2026), but that is no longer happening. According to Deadline, Weiss and Benioff said their scheduled filled up–thanks to their lucrative new Netflix deal–and they were no longer able to make the movies.
“David Benioff and Dan Weiss are incredible storytellers,” Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy said in her own statement. “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.”
Earlier this year, Weiss and Benioff signed a deal with Netflix (said to be in the nine-figure range) to make new movies and TV shows for the streaming network. It appears the pair’s commitments to Netflix are partly the reason why their new Star Wars trilogy is no longer moving ahead.
“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,” Weiss and Benioff said. “So we are regretfully stepping away.”
The new Star Wars trilogy is not the first casualty related to Weiss and Benioff signing with Netflix. Their controversial HBO show, Confederate, was also killed off after the pair signed for big money with Netflix.
When Lucasfilm hired Weiss and Benioff for the new Star Wars movies in 2018, Kennedy said the pair are “some of the best storytellers working today.” She said their new movies were expected to “break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting.”
While the new Star Wars trilogy from Weiss and Benioff is finished, Disney is still moving forward with another trilogy of new Star Wars films from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson. There is no word on if Lucasfilm plans to greenlight a new trilogy of Star Wars films to replace the three movies that Weiss and Benioff were expected to make.
The next Star Wars movie is this December’s The Rise of Skywalker, which wraps up the entire Skywalker Saga that began back in 1977.
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