To some he’s a great filmmaker who delivered easily the best of Disney’s “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, certainly from a visual/filmmaking perspective. To others, he destroyed that franchise which they adored.
Nearly a decade on, talk about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” has cooled down somewhat as Disney has pumped out plenty of “Star Wars” content since then – some great, some terrible and quite a bit that that was mediocre.
But Johnson remains something of a lightning rod in the fandom for debates, especially as there has long been talk of him doing another trilogy within this universe.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, it seems not only is that not happening anytime remotely soon – it never really progressed much at all. Asked what happened with it and why it went on the backburner, he says he’d still love to revisit the franchise but is quite happy doing his own stuff these days:
“Nothing really happened with it. We had a great time working together, and they said, ‘Let’s keep doing it.’ I said, ‘Great!’ I would kick ideas around with Kathy. The short version is Knives Out happened. I went off and made Knives Out, and was off to the races, busy making murder mysteries. It’s the sort of thing if, down the line, there’s an opportunity to do it, or do something else in Star Wars, I would be thrilled. But right now I’m just doing my own stuff, and pretty happy.”
Then asked how much of his new trilogy he had mapped out before turning his attention elsewhere, he says: “It was all very conceptual. I made Knives Out fairly quickly after. There was never any outline or treatment or anything.”
Johnson also cleared up talk about his involvement in what would become the “Last Jedi” follow-up film and sequel trilogy closer “Rise of Skywalker”. He says he and his team “never were anticipating doing a third one. It was nothing we were pitching ourselves for” with Kathleen Kennedy making the decision as they were wrapping. He adds:
“From the very start, the assignment was doing [film number] eight, and another director would do nine. I didn’t know it would be J.J. But the whole thing was being the middle leg of the race.”
For the full interview, which goes into the controversial Holdo manuever and the slaying of Snoke, head over to RollingStone.com.
Johnson also confirms his next project is a ‘standalone’ sci-fi film based on an idea he had after making “Looper”.
