The list of Star Wars projects that have started and never seen the light of day is very long. Heck, we even made one ourselves. However, arguably the most intriguing of those was a Boba Fett movie by director James Mangold. Mangold, the director of Logan, The Wolverine, and 3:10 to Yuma was working on a Fett film after Josh Trank and before The Mandalorian, but it was eventually scrapped
In a new interview with Happy Sad Confused, Mangold—who stayed with Lucasfilm to make Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny—said that what he was doing with Boba Fett was quite different from what audiences saw from the character later. “At the point I was doing it, I was probably scaring the shit out of everyone, but I was probably making much more of a borderline-rated R, single-planet, spaghetti western,” Mangold said. “I was just listening to Ennio Morricone all day, all night, and typing away. But I’m not sure it ever would’ve happened. I’m not sure it was in anyone’s plans what I was thinking about.”
No, making a borderline R-rated Star Wars movie was probably not in the cards. And then, well, it was never gonna happen anyway. When asked about the end of the project, the director said it ended because of “a moment of corporate realignment after whatever happened with the Han Solo movie.” Which, if you remember, was the moment in 2018 when Solo failed to live up to expectations and future Star Wars standalone movies focusing on characters like Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi were canceled. “They just suddenly decided they weren’t making pictures like that, and I think the opportunities in streaming presented themselves,” he said.
But, there’s a plus side to this. Mangold agrees that, because his take on Boba Fett isn’t the one we ended up seeing on either The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett, it left room for creator Jon Favreau to change the face of Star Wars forever. “The world would never be able to embrace Baby Yoda if I had made that,” Mangold said. “He didn’t really belong in the world I was kind of envisioning.”
And, of course, now he’s working on a new Star Wars film. This one is about the first person to discover and use the Force. Hopefully, that one actually happens.
See Mangold’s new film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, in theaters now. Boba Fett can be seen both on The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+
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