STAR WARS Producer Simon Kinberg Taking Over Spin-Off Writing Duties From Gary Whitta?

Just a couple of days ago it was confirmed that screenwriter Gary Whitta (Book of Eli, Walking Dead) would be leaving Gareth Edwards' untitled Star Wars spin-off. The writer would be moving-on to focus on adapting Mark Millar's comic Starlight for 20th Century Fox.

Another writer was expected to take his place since the film has a release date of December 16, 2016. As a new rumor coming from Slash Film suggests that Rebels writer-producer Simon Kinberg could be taking over where Whitta left-off.

/Film has learned, but was unable to confirm, that it will be Simon Kinberg. At Lucasfilm, Kinberg is a consultant on The Force Awakens, a writer and producer on Star Wars Rebels, and writer of at least one standalone movie. Whether or not that became this film or is another remains unclear. But Kinberg will be taking over duties for Whitta on this movie.

This shouldn't be too shocking to anyone who has been following the Lucasfilm development deals for future Star Wars projects. It was announced a while back by Lucasfilm that both Simon Kinberg (X-Men Days of Future Past, Fantastic Four) and Lawarence Kasdan (Raiders of The Lost Ark) would be handling the Star Wars spin-offs, taking-on duties of both writers and producers.

Kasdan was said to be penning the Boba Fett movie scrupt which has been in the works for at least four years. The bounty hunter's creator Joe Johnston confirmed he was pitching a Fett film to George Lucas back in 2011. Fett was mentioned along with Han Solo and Yoda as characters potentially getting spin-off installments.

Larry would later be called-up to rewrite The Force Awakens script with director J.J. Abrams. A huge promotion for him but sort of expected since Larry had penned but Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi previously.

Simon is another story, helping spearhead the successful animated series Star Wars Rebels. Like The Cone Wars, is series that is canonical to the original trilogies and new films. A huge task for any writer or producer to keep in order.

He's also heavily involved with other major projects at 20th Century Fox and Sony. Partnering with Neill Blomkamp on his films Elysium and Chappie. He's also instrumental in the development of Fox's X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises as writer-producer.

Seeing Kinberg make the jump to writing the Star Wars spin-off films feels like it was already apart of his original deal with Lucasfilm. Considering that Simon was an established screenwriter before signing-on for his Star Wars deal.

As per usual the details surrounding the film from Godzilla director Gareth Edwards are varied and unconfirmed.

However, there was talk from reliable Slash Film that the movie could revolve around a group of bounty hunters who are tasked to secure the Death Star plans. These plans helped the rebels destroy it during the original film.

Could this end-up being out Boba Fett movie since he's the most notorious bounty hunter?

You might remember that LucasArts was planning on release a video game with the working title Star Wars 1313 (demo footage above). It seemingly would focus on the underworld of the Star Wars universe which included thieves and bounty hunters.

After it's eventually cancelation along with a Darth Maul game, it was revealed 1313 was in fact a Boba Fett game with players being placed in the role of the legendary bounty-hunting Mandalorian. Concept art revealed that he would be working with a team of fellow bounty hunters in the game.

While it's possible the Lucasfilm/Disney merger could have killed many of the games LucasArts had in development. They could have also given it the axe because of this Boba Fett movie was in the works and the wanted to fold the game into the film's development. Again, this first spin-off is said to focus on a team bounty hunters and would be set around the time Boba was still alive.

In my opinion, this very likely could be the Boba Fett centric film we've been hearing about for years.


SOURCE: SLASHFILM