There has been a disturbance in the Force at Lucasfilm — again.
Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have suddenly dropped out of their planned series of Star Wars films, Deadline reports.
Benioff and Weiss were brought into the galaxy far, far away in 2018, when Lucasfilm announced they would write and produce a "series" of Star Wars movies, the first of which was later set for a 2022 release. This would make it the first Star Wars film to be released after December's era-concluding Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
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But since then, Benioff and Weiss signed a deal with Netflix, and the duo cite this as their reason for leaving. "There are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects," they said in a statement.
Benioff and Weiss, who recently wrapped up a controversial final Game of Thrones season, join a long line of creators who have exited Star Wars projects going back to director Josh Trank, who exited a planned Star Wars spinoff in 2015. Then there was Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were controversially fired from Solo: A Star Wars Story and replaced by Ron Howard while shooting had already been underway. Colin Trevorrow was also fired from the since-titled Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, leading to J.J. Abrams' return. And while Gareth Edwards remained on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, director Tony Gilroy was brought in for extensive reshoots.
Now, the future of Star Wars, which wraps up its main Skywalker storyline this December, is once again unclear. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, however, was recently brought on board to produce a film, and The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is seemingly still set to helm a new trilogy unrelated to the Skywalker saga. Benioff and Weiss' project might be dead, but luckily for Lucasfilm, there is another.
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