Tag: John Boyega

'Star Wars: New Jedi Order' Actress Daisy Ridley Supports Finn Becoming A Jedi: “I Would Love To See That"
Posted on in Film News, News

‘Star Wars: New Jedi Order’ Actress Daisy Ridley Supports Finn Becoming A Jedi: “I Would Love To See That”

Lucasfilm is continuing the Rey Skywalker story with “Star Wars: New Jedi Order” set to bring back sequel trilogy actress Daisy Ridley to pay the young Jedi master as she looks to train a new generation of Jedi in the movie set for release on December 18, 2026. While we’re still in the dark about the return of other established characters like John Boyega‘s Finn, that sort of got short-changed after being set up in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” as the co-lead before taking more of a supporting role in the wake of weird racist/sexist backlash the sequel trilogy installments kept getting from the more unhinged corners of the internet and right-wing media freaking out about women and non-white characters being protagonists in fantasy films.

Ridley while speaking with Screen Rant, isn’t sure if Lucasfilm will ultimately bring Finn back but supports the idea of having him finally make the jump to become a Jedi, even if it’s “above her pay grade” to make that happen. “That is above my pay grade. [Laughs] I would love to see that, but that is not a decision for me,” the “Star Wars” actress told Screen Rant when asked about Boyega finally getting his Jedi wish.

For Boyega’s part, he’s said in the past he’s spoken since the release of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” with Lucasfilm’s head Kathleen Kennedy, sharing his previous disappointments. He’s also made it clear to media and fans that he’s not interested in reprising the Finn role for a Disney+ project, leaving some wiggle room for a comeback on the big screen. Many were upset that Finn never ended up becoming a Jedi even though they kept teasing his force-sensitives, and he even wielded a lightsaber twice in the first film. Sadly, it felt like Lucasfilm caved to a small vocal group that was incensed that a black actor was playing a Stormtrooper and being given such a prominent role in the film.

There have been rumblings of Finn’s big return, but nothing official has been announced, and we likely would know about something like that closer to a production start. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (“Ms. Marvel”) is set to direct “Star Wars: New Jedi Order” with a tentative release date of December 18, 2026, and it has been suggested that cameras could begin rolling sometime after Jon Favreau‘s “The Mandalorian & Grogu” (heading to theaters on May 22, 2026) kicks-off production in California later this year.

There is also now a sense that James Mangold’s “Star Wars: Dawn of The Jedi” could end up taking the spot on December 17, 2027, reserved for another “Star Wars” movie.

SOURCE: SCREEN RANT

Posted on in Film News

Joe Cornish Says He’s Spoken To John Boyega Recently About Story Ideas For An ‘Attack The Block’ Sequel

Director Joe Cornish has revealed to Entertainment Weekly during a SXSW interview that he’s recently spoken with Attack The Block actor John Boyega about sequel ideas. You might remember that Joe’s sci-fi comedy helped give international exposure to Boyega before he was ultimately cast as Finn by J.J. Abrams for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

CORNISH: “We’re working on it at the moment. John Boyega was round at my place a few weeks ago and we sat in the garden — socially distanced — talking about story ideas until it was so dark we couldn’t see each other. So, yeah, we’re working on that.”

John’s Attack The Block co-star Jodie Whittaker also got her own sci-fi franchise gig as well becoming the 13th Doctor on the BBC’s Doctor Who series.

It’s unknown if we’ll actually get Attack The Block 2, but it would be exciting to see what could happen if Joe Cornish was given a much larger budget for a sequel since the original had some decent production value for only costing $13 million to make. However, while the film has earned a bit of a cult follow on streaming and home video, it flopped at the box office only earning $6 million (less than half it’s budget).

Given it’s troubles at the box office, I wouldn’t be shocked if a sequel ended up at a streaming service such as Netflix or Amazon.

ATTACK THE BLOCK – Attack the Block follows an unlucky young woman and a gang of tough inner city kids who make an unlikely alliance to try to defend their turf against an invasion of savage alien creatures, turning a South London apartment complex into an intergalactic war-zone.

SOURCE: ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Posted on in Film News

John Boyega Feels Finn and Rose Were Sidelined In ‘Star Wars’ Sequels – Did Disney Cave To Online Racists?

With the Star Wars franchise behind him, John Boyega has spoken with GQ about his experience making the recent trilogy and he basically feels that Lucasfilm/Disney had no idea what to with his character Finn in the two sequels after making him a huge deal during the marketing leading up to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

BOYEGA: “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know fuck all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience…’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

It is worth noting that during the release of The Force Awakens, John Boyega received a massive backlash from racists furious that a black actor was playing a Stromtrooper and there was call for a boycott claiming “white genocide”. The main gripe seemed to be folks were upset that a black character was getting a spotlight in a predominantly white franchise, despite Mace Windu and Lando Calrissian being established characters.

I imagine most people forgot this was even a thing, but here is a refresher of what happened after the first trailer reveal.

This was a small amount of people but it’s hard to ignore that Finn’s role in the subsequent sequels was drastically decreased and he became more of a supporting player like Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron. It would be hard to argue that Finn was one of the three main characters in The Force Awakens and his diminished arc was a little upsetting given that Colin Trevorrow’s Duel of The Fates would have had Finn in much more heroic and impactful role.

There is a strong possibility to avoid more racially-fueled backlash they rolled-back Finn a bit in Star Wars: The Last Jedi as he was relegated to a side character.

Kelly Marie Tran experienced her own wave of racist online bullying from the toxic side of fandom in the wake of her role as Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which saw racial slurs being mixed into complaints of her performance and how the character was written.

This led the actress to quit social media.

In retrospect, Disney seemingly caved to both these weird racist reactions to Finn and Rose as they both saw their hierarchy in the franchise diminished, they also happened to be the two minority characters in the trilogy. Finn’s force sensitively that was teased in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was never fully realized and Rose’s screentime in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker essentially became a glorified cameo after having such a significant role in the previous film.

People also noticed that Disney’s merchandise for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker failed to include Rose leading up to the release, a possible attempt of an erasure of the character in light of the racist backlash from the last film.

It certainly feels like Disney just placed the characters into the background and pulled back on giving them a substantial journey to avoid anymore negative outrage and possibly in their minds targeted harassment. However, I think the latter would be a little harder to believe.

Disney and Lucasfilm certainly said how important the characters were in the press rounds but wasn’t really reflected on the screen.

John certainly is allowed to express his feelings and we were also frustrated by the creative choices made with his character after all the potential on display in The Force Awakens.

SOURCE: GQ

Posted on in Film News

IRA Thriller ‘Borderland’ To Star John Boyega, Jack Reynor, Felicity Jones, and Jodie Turner-Smith – Shooting Early 2021 In The UK

Deadline reports that an impressive cast has been hired for an upcoming IRA thriller titled Borderland. The group of young talent assembled includes John Boyega (Detroit, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Jack Reynor (Free Fire, Midsommar), Felicity Jones (Theory of Everything, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), and Jodie Turner-Smith (Without Remorse, Nightflyers). 

Borderland will explore the violent tensions between the unwelcomed British military presence and the IRA in Northern Ireland. 

The film will follow an Irish paramilitary, Michael (Reynor), who witnesses the shooting of his pregnant wife at the hands of an SAS sergeant named Tempest (Boyega) when a border ambush goes wrong. When Tempest is sent back to London to lead a covert counter-terrorist operation, Michael joins a ruthless active service unit (ASU) wreaking havoc in the capital. For Michael, the mission is personal – to hunt down Tempest – and he’ll stop at nothing to avenge his wife’s death.

It will be directed by The Guard Brothers and the pair of siblings co-wrote the script with Ronan Bennett. 

Filming is said to begin on location in the United Kingdom starting sometime in early 2021. 

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Joe Cornish Says He’s Met With John Boyega About An ‘Attack The Block’ Sequel

It sounds like John Boyega might be returning to the world of science fiction in the near future.

While on the Script Apart Podcast (via Empire), writer/director Joe Cornish (Attack The Block) has revealed that he has met with Star Wars actor John Boyega about potentially returning for a sequel to his breakout British sci-fi comedy Attack The Block.

CORNISH: “We’ve got ideas. I met with John a couple of months ago to talk about it. We’ve always had ideas after the first one. But obviously we’ve both been busy doing different things. In a way, the longer you leave it, the more interesting it is. So, that’s all I’ll say.”

Boyega got noticed thanks to his leading role in the R-rated film which led to big franchise roles in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Pacific Rim: Uprising. This comes after John felt he might see some career backlash from speaking out at UK protests supporting Black Lives Matter, which saw a bunch of directors stating publicly they are keen to work with the actor after his impassioned speech went viral on social media.

Next May will see the film’s 10th Anniversary.

ATTACK THE BLOCK – From the producers of Shaun of the Dead, ATTACK THE BLOCK is a fast, funny, frightening action adventure movie that pits a teen street gang against an invasion of savage alien monsters. It turns a London housing project into a sci-fi battleground, the low-income apartment complex into a fortress under siege. And it turns a crazy mix of tough street kids into a team of kick ass heroes. It’s inner city versus outer space and it’s going to explode.



SOURCE: SCRIPT APART PODCAST