Last Thursday, the news broke that Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg had been tapped by Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy to write and produce a new Star Wars trilogy.
There have been conflicting reports about whether these movies will serve as Episodes 10, 11, and 12 in the Skywalker Saga. However, most outlets have confirmed at this stage that they're not going to be a continuation.
According to a new piece from Variety, the news came as a surprise to executives at Lucasfilm and Disney, but is "considered internally to be in deep development and not nearly ready to be made public." In other words, this could be another announced Star Wars project that fails to ever materialise.
The trade acknowledges that many in the industry were shocked by Kinberg's hiring, particularly as his track record as a writer is spotty at best (2015's Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand rank among his worst efforts). Despite that, his history working on franchises means "Kinberg is seen on one level as a sensible and safe choice."
Love or hate them, the movies he's written have grossed over $3 billion worldwide and he has produced some hits beyond X-Men. "He’s said to understand how to talk to film executives about franchise filmmaking in a way that allays their concerns about creative decisions affecting the costly bottom line for these kinds of projects," it's added.
The trade runs down Kinberg's many critical and commercial failures but reveals his hiring, in part, is due to "Kinberg’s continuing creative relationship with Lucasfilm creative executive Carrie Beck and chief creative officer Dave Filoni."
They worked with him on Star Wars Rebels and Kennedy has made several attempts to bring the veteran producer back into the fold, first as part of a braintrust with Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan to come up with ideas for the Star Wars sequels and later to work on the scrapped Boba Fett movie alongside Josh Trank and, a couple of years later, James Mangold.
Finally, it's said, "Kinberg’s efforts are meant to create a new saga, but as is the case with virtually all script development, specific plot details and characters are light years away from taking their final shape, let alone arrive in theaters."
Rian Johnson and David Benioff & D. B. Weiss both tried and failed to launch new Star Wars trilogies at Lucasfilm, so whether Kinberg will have any greater success remains to be seen. He's also busy overseeing the Star Trek franchise for Paramount, remember.
While working on X-Men, Kinberg made a lot of creative decisions that upset fans. Whether that will be the case with Star Wars remains to be seen, though there doesn't appear to be a huge amount of excitement to see what he'll potentially bring to the table with a new series of movies.