Shawn Levy Talks About Directing a STAR WARS Movie for Lucasfilm
Director Shawn Levy isn’t only developing Deadpool 3 for Marvel Studios, he’s also developing a Star Wars movie for Lucasfilm. He’s getting a chance to play in some pretty awesome movie sandboxes, and it’s exciting to see what he will end up bringing to these franchises. It’s funny because I never thought I’d see the guy behind the Night At The Museum films making these kinds of movies! But, he really became a talented director over the years.
During a recent interview with Collider, Levy talked about his excitement for the Star Wars project, saying:
"If you had told me back when I was directing Big Fat Liar that someday I'd be working on the biggest TV show in the world and directing Marvel followed by Star Wars, I would've told you ‘You're f**king nuts.’ But it is so thrilling. And it is the kind of big canvas storytelling that I've always dreamed of doing.
“I've gotten lucky because ironically it started with Night at the Museum where you're really building a world, and you're incorporating comedy and heart. And you and I have spoken a lot, that’s very much what I tried to do on Free Guy and Adam Project. And so to get the calls from both Marvel and Lucasfilm, really gratifying. Because I've done this job for a while and these are calls I definitely hoped I would someday get. And the fact that it's all coming now and that this is the next several years of my life is really... I'm just stoked. I don't have deeper words than that. I am happy and excited about it every day."
As you know, over the years, Lucasfilm has announced several Star Wars films with directors attached that have yet to actually go anywhere. Levy is very aware of this, but he explained his attitude toward the whole thing as follows:
“I have this golden ticket into a galaxy far away, and I'm going to devote myself to developing a screenplay that gives me the privilege of making this movie. I don't attach to things because it looks good in a trade announcement. I attach to things that I intend to make. And you better believe I'm not going to squander this juiciest of opportunities. I'm going to work my ass off. But first, I got to work my ass off on making Deadpool. So it's definitely longer-term planning, but I want to be one of the movies that gets to the starting line because these are rare opportunities, and I want to make the most of it."
You’ve got to love his attitude! He’s obviously not going to share details of the story that he’s working on, but he does talk about his working relationship with Kathleen Kennedy, saying:
"I’ve been talking with Kathy Kennedy for awhile now, and she’s been aware of my passion for this franchise for a long time. The stars finally aligned, and she came to me and was like, let’s do something here. And that's as much as I can say. But this is definitely development and not yet close to prep. So there's a lot of work to be done."
Levy has had a pretty cool career as a filmmaker, and I hope that he actually gets to make this Star Wars movie! At this point, I don’t know if we’ll ever even see another Star Wars film on the big screen again! They can’t seem to get it together over there in regard to that.