Maybe this is why we should take filmmaker debunks with a grain of salt? Way back in 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilm; you remember that, of course. And in the ensuing years, there were rumors of many proposed solo films, a Han Solo movie, a Yoda movie, and a Boba Fett film. Obviously, “Solo: A Star Wars” film happened, but a Yoda film did not, and we all know by now that the Boba Fett film essentially morphed into what is known now as “The Mandalorian” and a little bit of “The Book Of Boba Fett” too. And at one point, James Mangold was rumored to be directing that Boba Fett movie circa 2018.
At the time, Mangold vehemently said those rumors were false. “Chill,” he tweeted at the time. “I’m making a period car racing movie w/ Christian Bale & Matt Damon. No Mandalorians involved. Stop reading so much gossip.”
Of course, it turns out that Mangold—revealed recently— had been having long talks with Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm about “Star Wars,” and now he’s going to be eventually making a “Star Wars” film about the creation of the Jedis, tentatively known as ‘Dawn Of The Jedi.’
And now, enough time has apparently passed that Mangold feels comfortable with setting the record straight and revealing, yes, he did have conversations and talks about a ‘Boba Fett’ film at one point.
In a recent Variety piece with Mangold recently, discussing his new “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny” film, the trade simply confirmed the news.
With “Star Wars,” Mangold had “more than flirted” years earlier with making a Boba Fett movie that would have been a one-off spaghetti Western in the vein of Sergio Leone.
But that’s all that was said, and the only quotes were “more than flirted with.” Yet in a long-form chat with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Mangold admitted more and gave up more details, including the fact that what he was dreaming up would have been more R-Rated. In fact, by his own account, he was making that Boba Fett film at one point despite his denials.
“At the point I was doing it, I was probably scaring the sh*t out of everyone, but I was probably making much more of a borderline rated-R, single-planet, spaghetti western,” he explained. “The world would never be able to embrace Baby Yoda if I had made that, because he didn’t really belong in the world I was kind of envisioning.”
In fact, Mangold said the failure of “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is really what kind of killed his ‘Boba Fett’ movie.
“They just suddenly decided they weren’t making pictures like that,” Mangold said, alluding to the post-‘Solo’ environment when the film tanked, and Lucasfilm moved away from solo spin-off movies and then decided to take their storytelling ideas to the land of TV and streaming. “And I think the opportunities in streaming presented themselves.”
Additionally, lol, this makes the denials all the more amusing; Mangold also admitted he wrote a script, and the time writing the script was a “beautiful period” in his life. “I was just listening to Ennio Morricone all day, all night and typing away,” he said of the Spaghetti Western influences that were driving the movie. “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.”
As for his ‘Dawn of The Jedi’ film, which is going to happen, knock on wood, Mangold explained how it all happened. Years later, Kathleen Kennedy revisited the ‘Star Wars’ conversation and if he was still interested in making one of those movies.
“I said, ‘Yes, but it seems like everything you’re developing is continuing forward,’” he remembered to Variety. Mangold said he pitched “a ‘Ten Commandments’ [like-movie] about the dawning of the Force,” he continued. “It is basically, for fans, a kind of religion. What is it to have found this power and not even understand what it is?” Kennedy apparently pounced on the idea, and it’s coming… well, sometime in the future and probably not until closer to 2030, honestly. Mangold still has a Bob Dylan film to shoot (reportedly later this year) and then has a DC “Swamp Thing” movie to make (though “Star Wars” could come first). Either way, a movie that’s not shot takes two years to make at least, then you need a year break, and then, well, tack on another two years to that conservatively, and that’s the next next James Mangold film, so be patient.
That said, Kathleen Kennedy adds, “Jim’s pretty fast — he’s already got the basic treatment laid out in his head. Once the writer’s strike is over, she adds, “He has every intention of wanting to move this forward very aggressively, and we want to support that.”
Listen to more of his Boba Fett thoughts in the Happy Sad Confused podcast below.
