Tag: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Posted on in Film News, News

Andy Serkis Was “Slightly Mortified” By Snoke’s Death In ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’

Actor/director Andy Serkis is making the press rounds to help promote his latest directorial effort, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and finally is talking about his experience on Star Wars.

While speaking with geek outlet iO9, the topic predictable turned to Star Wars and specifically the death of his big villain, Supreme Leader Snoke. It was expected that Snoke would become the new Emperor Palpatine and that was cut short, literally, with a death scene in the throne room.

Serkis reveals that he was shocked to find out while reading the Star Wars: The Last Jedi script that his new villain wouldn’t survive the second film, giving the impression he assume Snoke would become a franchise staple or at least stick around for the third film.

“I was devastated when I read that script because it was all going so well. I was like, ‘Man, this is a boss character. I’m going to love playing… what!? You’re kidding me, what?’ I was like ‘Okay, is a good idea? I supposed it is. I was slightly mortified, pardon the pun. It was all in the right, I think. I loved playing that character and I love the face-off scene between Kylo Ren and Rey, and so it was great.”

Serkis also says that he was kept in the dark about the origins of Snoke that were revealed in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which isn’t terribly surprising since there were multiple incarnations of Episode 9 and the Palpatine stuff seemed to be tagged-on once Colin Trevorrow exited.

“The journey towards discovering that he was a Palpatine clone was something that happened during the process because everything was so secret since Force Awakens.”

I personally wasn’t a fan of the return of Palpatine, as they could have made Snoke an immortal entity that has died thousands of time and simply brought him back in The Rise of Skywalker. Oh well.

Luckily, Serkis was doing motion capture work and allows him return to play future characters, if called upon for other film and television projects.

There is an assumption that Andy Serkis, while won’t play Caesar, will be involved in the fourth Planet of The Apes installment from director Wes Ball. The pair almost worked together on Mouse Guard, one of the large budget projects that got killed during the Disney/Fox merger.

SOURCE: iO9

Posted on in Film News

‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Cinematographer Steve Yedlin Confirmed To Reunite With Rian Johnson For ‘Knives Out 2’

The Ronin has been able to confirm that cinematographer Steve Yedlin will indeed be reuniting with longtime collaborator Rian Johnson for Knives Out 2. Yedlin previously worked with Rian on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Knives Out, Looper, The Brothers Bloom, and Brick.

Filming is said to begin next month in Greece.

The impressive cast of Knives Out 2 consists of Daniel Craig (No Time To Die), Dave Bautista (Blade Runner 2049, Spectre, Guardians of The Galaxy, Army of The Dead), Edward Norton (Fight Club, The Incredible Hulk, Rounders, Moonrise Kingdom), Janelle Monae (Moonlight, Hidden Figures), Kathryn Hahn (WandaVision), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous), and Leslie Odom Jr. (Murder On The Orient Express, One Night In Miami).

Craig will officially reprise the role of detective Benoit Blanc for at least two more films and the scenic filming location of Greece would lead to speculation there has been a murder at some sort of hotel or cruise ship. The second film isn’t expected to have any members of the Thrombey family return.

The Knives Out sequels made headlines when Netflix closed a massive deal with Johnson and Craig worth a massive $400 million to secure the next two installments.

Johnson is a busy guy, as he’s also developing a new mystery series with Natasha Lyonne called Poker Face and is still seemingly working on that original Star Wars trilogy for Lucasfilm. Details about the Star Wars project has yet to be made official by the studio or filmmaker.

A release date for Knives Out 2 has yet to be announced by Netflix.

KNIVES OUT – The circumstances surrounding the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey are mysterious, but there’s one thing that renowned Detective Benoit Blanc knows for sure — everyone in the wildly dysfunctional Thrombey family is a suspect. Now, Blanc must sift through a web of lies and red herrings to uncover the truth.

Posted on in Film News

‘Star Wars’: J.J. Abrams Reflects On Planning The Sequel Trilogy – “There’s Nothing More Important Than Knowing Where You’re Going”

There has been some criticism from Star Wars fans that Lucasfilm, J.J. Abrams, and Rian Johnson jumped into making the sequel trilogy without a concrete plan and potentially led to some contradictory moments between the three massive movies.

This was highlighted when director Colin Trevorrow’s unmade version of Episode IX, Star Wars: Duel of The Fates, was pretty much scrapped by the studio for something completely different from Abrams and screenwriter Chris Terrio with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Concept artwork and the script for Duel of The Fates made it’s way online placing a spotlight on those scrapped plans, reinforcing the narrative that the studio didn’t have a master plan for this trilogy from the start.

Abrams was doing a round of press interviews to help promote the 4K UHD Blu-Ray home release of his alien adventure film Super 8, where he was asked by Collider if they should have had a plan for the Star Wars trilogy beforehand. The filmmaker gave a mixed repose giving the pros and cons of both.

ABRAMS: “There are projects that I’ve worked on where we had some ideas but we hadn’t worked through them enough, sometimes we had some ideas but then we weren’t allowed to do them the way we wanted to. I’ve had all sorts of situations where you plan things in a certain way and you suddenly find yourself doing something that’s 180 degrees different, and then sometimes it works really well and you feel like, ‘Wow that really came together,’ and other times you think, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe this is where we are,’ and sometimes when it’s not working out it’s because it’s what you planned, and other times when it’s not working out it’s because you didn’t [have a plan].”

“You just never really know, but having a plan I have learned – in some cases the hard way – is the most critical thing, because otherwise you don’t know what you’re setting up. You don’t know what to emphasize. Because if you don’t know the inevitable of the story, you’re just as good as your last sequence or effect or joke or whatever, but you want to be leading to something inevitable.”

The main quote mentioned at the top of the interview piece suggests that Abrams laments not having a plan with their Star Wars movies.

ABRAMS: “I do think that there’s nothing more important than knowing where you’re going.”

J.J. Abrams has since moved to WarnerMedia with a massive deal to develop films/television series for the media company and Lucasfilm is looking beyond the Skywalker Saga with Patty Jenkins directing Star Wars: Rogue Squadron as the next big Star Wars release for December 2023. Other films in development stages are coming from Taika Waititi and Rian Johnson, neither are expected to continue the Rey Skywalker journey.

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Television News

‘Poker Face’: Natasha Lyonne Starring In 10-Episode Mystery Series At Peacock With Rian Johnson Set To Write & Direct

While we’re still waiting on updates concerning Rian Johnson’s sequel to Knives Out and his original Star Wars trilogy, there is a new project that was just announced yesterday. Deadline revealed that Rian and Russian Doll actress Natasha Lyonne are going to be teaming-up for new mystery series, titled Poker Face, at Peacock.

Rian Johnson will write and direct Poker Face as the project has been given a straight-to-series order by Peacock and will get 10-episodes.

However, there are currently no details about the series in the outlet’s report.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Star Wars’: Rian Johnson’s New Trilogy Still Happening Despite Lack of Updates From Lucasfilm

It looks like Rian Johnson himself has revealed in a chat with Sariah Wilson with that he’s indeed still working on his new Star Wars trilogy. This comes after the December update from Lucasfilm concerning their Star Wars projects failed to give us an update on the status of Johnson’s trilogy. However, it sounds like he’s still making them but his Knives Out sequel is the priority at the moment.

WILSON: “Yes, Rian’s SW trilogy is still on. No dates or timelines because he has other projects going on, but it is happening.”

This is how Lucasfilm described the trilogy when they first announced it’s development back in 2017.

Lucasfilm is excited to announce that Johnson will create a brand-new Star Wars trilogy, the first of which he is also set to write and direct, with longtime collaborator Ram Bergman onboard to produce. 

As writer-director of The Last Jedi, Johnson conceived and realized a powerful film of which Lucasfilm and Disney are immensely proud. In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.

Concerning the feature films, if the December presentation is to be believed Patty Jenkins’ Star Wars: Rogue Squadron would be the next project to go into production. While it’s a possible toss-up between Taika Waititi’s film (may have lost screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns) and this mysterious project from Rian. There have been multiple rumblings that either the studio or Johnson himself has moved on, but these have always been met with denials and this update seemingly is coming from Johnson himself. It’s worth mentioning a handful of Star Wars films haven’t reached the finish line and likely has people wondering if the trilogy will ever get made given how long ago it was announced.

The Book of Boba Fett and Andor are currently in production with Kenobi about to start filming in the late spring. Pedro Pascal might be a little busy shooting HBO’s The Last of Us and could suggest he’s been given a window to shoot something else before Season 3 of The Mandalorian beings.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what exactly Rian is making and when that first installment will get in front of cameras.

SOURCE: SARIAH WILSON

Posted on in Film News

‘Star Wars’: George Lucas Explains Why He Sold The Rights To Disney and Didn’t Make The Sequel Trilogy Himself

While George Lucas has been hands-off with the franchise since selling it to Disney back in 2012, fans have sort of wondered what the reasoning was behind handing over the franchise to Disney beyond the billions they gave him.

Author Paul Duncan has posted on Twitter an excerpt from his new book The Star Wars Archives Episodes I-III giving some insight, in the pages he asks George Lucas why he ultimately sold the rights to Disney and stepped away from making the Sequel Trilogy himself. Lucas’ answer seems to be more about having free time and not having to spend the next decade working on film trilogy.

DUNCAN: I wonder why you passed control of Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012?

LUCAS: “At that time I was starting the next trilogy; I talked to the actors and I was starting to gear up. I was also about to have a daughter with my wife. It takes 10 years to make a trilogy, Episodes I to III took from 1995 to 2005.”

“I was 69. So the question was am I going to keep doing this the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again? Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while.”

“I’m one of those micromanager guys and I can’t help it. So I figured I would forgo that, enjoy what I had, and I was looking forward to raising my daughter. Also, I wanted to build a museum, which I’d always wanted to do, so I was thinking ‘if I don’t do this now, I’ll never get that done’.”

“I’ve spent my life creating Star Wars, 40 years, and giving it up was very, very painful. But it was the right thing to do. I thought I was going to have a little bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else. Things don’t always work out the way you want it. Life is like that.”

Lucas previously dished to Duncan about what some of his ideas for the new trilogy were that didn’t ultimately get used by Disney including the villains and how the Luke would started a new wave of Jedi with help from the survivors of Order 66.

SOURCE: STAR WARS ARCHIVES EPISODES I-III