STAR WARS Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan Says The Studio Blew SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan has a long history with the Star Wars franchise and it also started with The Empire Strikes Back. The last Star Wars film he worked on was Solo: A Star Wars Story and that will most likely be the last film in the franchise that he’ll work on.
After telling Kathleen Kennedy that he wasn’t interested in jumping back on board Star Wars again, she managed to wrangle him in with The Force Awakens. While speaking at the Austin Film Festival, the writer did say that working on The Force Awakens was "a very good experience" and he agreed to come back for Solo if his son, Jonathan, could be involved as well.
But, things didn’t turn out the way he hoped. Kasdan went on to bluntly say, "Then the studio blew it, but that's not unusual." So, he came right out and placed the blame on Disney and Lucasfilm for what happened with Solo. While the film ended up being great, the movie didn’t make the kind of money that Disney hoped it would. The film wasn’t a failure like most people think, it just didn’t make as much as the studio wanted.
Whatever happened with Solo made him not want to work on any more films with them. He’s more interested in directing, but Lucasfilm hoped that he would stay involved, and even sent messengers to his house to try and hand-deliver a script to him. Kasdan said:
"I never saw this poor messenger they sent. I said, 'I can't take it.' I didn't want to sit down and read someone else's Star Wars movie. I'm just not interested in Star Wars."
He later added:
"Don't think for a second I don't know how lucky I am that they're sending a Star Wars script to my door and I can say, 'No, I won't accept it.' You have to be in a very privileged situation to do that, and I don't ever take that for granted."
I personally think that Solo was one of the best films that were made in this new series of Star Wars movies. I would have loved to see the story continue, but at this point, I don’t know what will happen. Hopefully, they continue the story as a Disney+ series at some point.
It’s kinda sad that Kasdan is ready to leave the Star Wars franchise behind him. But, I can’t wait to see what kind of projects he ends up developing next!
Source: SyFy