David Benioff & DB Weiss hired for a ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, probably about space dragons

New York Premiere  of "Game of Thrones"

After the insane build-up to Season 7 of Game of Thrones, is anyone else feeling like “yeah, I can wait to see Season 8” right about now? It’s not that I stopped caring about the characters – I still care, and I still want to know what happens, but I was also pretty disappointed in how all of these storylines got jammed up and thrown together so quickly in Season 7. My point is that showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss do good work when they have the source material, but when left to their own devices… well, you can see that they have issues.

Last summer, Weiss and Benioff seemed to be setting up their post-GoT careers, getting a new show greenlighted called Confederate. It was supposed to be a “what if the Confederacy had won the Civil War?” alternative history show. Everyone hated the concept and everyone hated that Weiss and Benioff were involved. There was an enormous amount of backlash. So I guess Benioff and Weiss went looking for some other post-GoT jobs. And since they’re white dudes with penises, they got jobs at Disney.

“Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are going to write and produce a new series of “Star Wars” films, Disney announced on Tuesday. The new series will be separate from the main episodic Skywalker saga that started with “Star Wars: A New Hope” and is slated to wrap up with 2019’s “Star Wars: Episode IX.” It will also exist independently from a Rian Johnson-helmed series that was announced last year.

“David and Dan are some of the best storytellers working today,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, in a statement. “Their command of complex characters, depth of story and richness of mythology will break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting.”

It also comes at a time of transition for Benioff and Weiss. “Game of Thrones,” their sprawling fantasy epic, will end its run on HBO in 2019. The show has been a massive hit for the premium cabler and has been hailed by fanboys and critics alike for its ability to mix spectacle and political wrangling. “Game of Thrones” is adapted from George R.R. Martin’s book series of the same name.

Benioff and Weiss previously announced that they were developing another series for HBO called “Confederate.” However, that show generated a great deal of controversy over its plotline — it’s an alternate history series that imagines that the American Civil war ended in a stalemate and slavery remains legal — which some deemed insensitive. HBO declined to comment on the future of that series.

“In the summer of 1977 we traveled to a galaxy far, far away, and we’ve been dreaming of it ever since,” Benioff and Weiss said in a joint statement. “We are honored by the opportunity, a little terrified by the responsibility, and so excited to get started as soon as the final season of ‘Game of Thrones’ is complete.”

[From Variety]

Weiss and Benioff will be the first ones to make a Star Wars film where a beloved female character gets gratuitously raped and her rape will be used as a plot device to further the male characters’ heroic arcs. Hurray. Seriously though, WTF is Kathleen Kennedy thinking? How many g–damn times have people gotten in her face and told her to hire someone other than a MEDIOCRE WHITE DUDE to direct a Star Wars movie? And she keeps doing it, and she keeps being disappointed and having to replace various mediocre white dude directors because, oh right, they’re mediocre. Kathleen could have taken meetings with Patty Jenkins or Dee Rees or Kathryn Bigelow or Ava DuVernay or Mira Nair. She could have taken meetings with Jordan Peele or Ryan Coogler (who, to be fair, directed Black Panther) or Barry Jenkins. Instead, she was like, “Hey the Game of Thrones guys are making that ‘what if the COnfederacy had won?’ show, let’s see if we give them a lot of money for Space Rape Dragons: A Star Wars Story.”

Also, there are a lot of complaints about Disney going WAY overboard with the Star Wars films, and over-saturating the market. Derp. What do you think I’ve been complaining about all this time? We don’t need a g–damn Star Wars movie every six months. Just like we don’t need a superhero movie every four months. Stop going to these movies, and the studios will stop making them.

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30 Responses to “David Benioff & DB Weiss hired for a ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, probably about space dragons”

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  1. Una says:

    Ok. Even if you get over the fact that there way too many Star Wars movies, why would you give a TRIOLOGY to GoT showrunners?? The writing quality dropped like a stone when they had to write original scripts rather than adaptations. I don’t understand Kennedy. First giving Rian Johnson triology before TLJ came out now this…

    Although I’ll point out the fact that Marvel box office is higher than ever. People are interested in seeing three Marvel movies a year. Meanwhile TLJ was the most frontloaded Star Wars movie ever. It came around the same time with Jumanji and Jumanji is still number one at the box office while TLJ is out of top 5. People would laugh you out of the room if you said this 4 months ago. Kathleen Kennedy is no Feige.

    • Mrs.Krabapple says:

      ITA. 99% of the credit for the Game of Thrones TV show goes to Martin. The TV people managed to make a good adaptation of the story, but when they ran out of book material . . . hoo boy, did the quality drop! And I think after the Han Solo movie (which looks terrible), Disney will give some thought to replacing Kennedy before the “brand” is damaged beyond repair.

  2. Surely Wolfbeak says:

    It’s about the Confederacy winning the Clone Wars.

  3. Mara says:

    This won’t end well

  4. Nicole says:

    Kathleen is an idiot at this point. You would think she would give THREE MOVIES to experienced directors in film. But noooooo that’s apparently too hard.
    I definitely don’t need two more trilogies and I love Star Wars. But they are going to completely kill the market.

  5. Aoife says:

    “And since they’re white dudes with penises, they got jobs at Disney.” So it’s not because of their hard work on GOT over all these years then?

    • Sara says:

      I enjoy GoT a lot, and appreciate the show runners’ work. I still think a fresh outlook on Star Wars is sorely lacking and I fail to see how they have demonstrated any capacity for creativity as opposed to adaptation of a written source…What a wasted opportunity. Plus, enough with trilogies. I enjoyed TLJ but we do not need more trilogies trilogies trilogies.

    • lannisterforever says:

      Yeah, I wasn’t a huge fan of Season 7 either but let’s give them some credit – they are responsible for the biggest TV series in the world. They have plenty of hard and great work to back up this hire.

      • DiligentDiva says:

        Nah, they aren’t responsible for it. Martin is responsible for it. He’s the one who created the world. All of D&D’s original plots, Sansa’s rape, Rewrites to Dorne, Battle of the Bastards (plotline, not visuals), and all of season 7, are where they get the most criticism. They repeatedly show how little creativity they have each time they write a non-book plotline.

    • Mia4s says:

      Not the point, and honestly it’s not about them. It’s not their fault. Lucasfilm yammers on about wanting to support diverse voices and then…doesn’t. Repeatly. Every chance they get. It’s lip service.

      • BaronSamedi says:

        Yeah, I also feel conflicted over laying the problem of Disney not hiring somebody else at the feet of the people who got hired.

        And if you want to argue that Disney kept fucking up the choice of inexperienced directors/creators before I am totally on board with that argument. But they also course corrected by now hiring the people responsible for one of the biggest media phenomenons in recent history.

        How is this not a slam dunk decision from a business point of view? I also think that once more people seem to be projecting a lot more willingness to diversify on a corporate entity than is realistic. Donald Trump is still the president, Congress is still Republican and corporations are still acting in their own best interest while maybe paying lip service to social issues.

    • Aiobhan Targaryen says:

      What hard work are they putting in? Essentially they are putting up well-funded fan fiction. Cliffs notes for an already established book series.

      Most of the hard work from GOT is from the woman who creates the costumes on the show, the actors, and the VX team.

      • DiligentDiva says:

        Also, there intern staff writers, Dave Hill and Bryan Cogman write better episodes then they do. David and Dan’s episodes are filled to the brim with fart and dick jokes.

    • FF says:

      The point is that women have also worked hard and is there any reason she can’t hire female writers and directors for Star Wars movie? Say what you want but D&D don’t need any kind of leg up in the industry. They are well served in the positions they’re in already due to GOT.

      If KK is claiming female directors don’t have enough experience how come RJ got not only the gig for 8 BUT a trilogy before the reaction to 8 was even known yet?

      Wonder Woman had a female director and did well. What about Catherine Hardwick, Ava DuVernay?; any MoC directors like Taika Waititi, Cary Fukanaga, or Ryan Coogler? What about getting female directors on second camera units so they can work up to director and get more experience?

      Nevermind that is GOT as a brand diametrically opposed to Star Wars. But this is what you get when you expect feminism from white feminists.

  6. Odetta says:

    There are way too many Star Wars movies, this is getting ridiculous. But I can’t complain about David benioff, he’s a good writer, but I wish he would go back to writing novels

  7. SM says:

    Yeah. Never got into GoT. And I do not have much confidence in two white dudes who use rape as a plot device, who think making a show what allows extensice violence and who think that a show about how Congederates won is a good idea.

  8. Aiobhan Targaryen says:

    They are, at least to me, the worst writers on their own damn show. At least they cannot ruin this series for me like they did with A Song of Ice and Fire. I am not attached to the characters in the SW universe as I am in the book series. I feel bad for anyone who does like anyone in the SW universe.

    Kathleen Kennedy needs to be stopped. She keeps hiring unworthy talentless white dudes, giving them tons of money to then make horrible products. Does she not remember what she had to do with the directors on SOLO? The ONLY reason I can think that she hired these morons is that they are kind of similar to George Lucas’ work: aesthetically everything is visually arresting but the writing is pure crap. Just go look at the script for New Hope and The Empire Strikes back; the second film’s script is much better.

    Someone put up the idea to have Del Toro direct a SW film and now I really want this. He would probably be the only person to make a SW monster interesting. Waititi(?) is another I would nominate for a SW film.

    Lastly, the tall one in the top photo is attractive. It is too early in the morning for me to be ashamed that I typed that.

  9. Liberty says:

    I’m just surprised that more people haven’t figured out the Kathleen Kennedy thing by now.

  10. DiligentDiva says:

    Honestly, I do get how people claim they are some genius for GOT? All the non-book plotlines suck. Since season 5 the show’s plot has been going downhill, and only now in season 7 which was a plot of just there plotlines have we openly acknowledged as creators they suck.
    Acting like they somehow built the show erases who actually built the show, George RR Martin. He’s the one who came up with every plot people loved. Not D&D.
    Star Wars is making a mistake, 1. this is obviously the least diverse storyline they could make, 2. these writers have horrible track records with POC, women, and LGBT characters, and 3. they simply don’t know how to write good plotlines on there own. Unless they are spoonfed a good plotline by someone else they are the most uncreative people on TV at the moment.

  11. Jess says:

    Ugh. Kathleen’s stats at this point are awful – all white dudes. And it’s not like they were all the “best for the job” – several have been fired and these last few movies have not been good. I’m a huge Star Wars fan and even I’m getting sick of these movies.

    • Grumpy says:

      Rogue One and The Last Jedi were great movies, just different.
      I went in to both with no expectations and really enjoyed them. In fact I was expecting not to like The Last Jedi much and came out a total ‘Reylo’ fangirl even though I hadn’t known such a thing existed!
      They are making too many movies for sure. I would like them to finish the sequel trilogy and leave it at that.

    • BorderMollie says:

      Exactly! I don’t mind hiring white dudes if they’re talented, but so far they’ve been the height of mediocrity for SW. The Last Jedi, for all its talented actors, was just so boring and full of plot conveniences. These guys have made GOT into a boring series of meetings intercut with short battle scenes, so I’m not confident they’ll do any better.

  12. Maum says:

    GOT Season 7 was pure fanboy fanfic. Essentially went against the whole morally ambiguous character of the original story to pit the pretty people (who randomly fell in love to please shippers) against the one- dimensional baddies.
    What a let down.

    I actually liked Star Wars episode 8 and am looking forward to see how they will end this trilogy.
    I just hope the next one is not Skywalker based.

  13. WendyNerd says:

    NOOOOPE. We do not need space “Bad Pussy”. This is such a terrible idea. These guys are hacks who screw up everything once they no longer have other writers’ ideas to steal from.

  14. Veronica says:

    Yeah, I’m one of those nerds who’s “in deep” with Star Wars fandom, and the general consensus is…displeasure. Yes, GoT is a highly rated show, but it definitely has serious issues (especially with the portrayals of women) and a style completely opposed to the intention of Star Wars. (And if we’re going to credit them for GoT, remember that Benioff is also responsible for the garbage that was “Troy” and “X-Men Origins.” He’s not exactly a sure shot.)

    Beyond that, since SW is a franchise that’s bound to make money, there’s no reason you can’t give a more diverse range of directors and writers a chance at these films. Even Abrams and Johnson made a case for it, so at this point, it’s just lip service designed to infuriate everybody who sees through it.

  15. PPP says:

    Yes, let’s get the misogynist, racist GOT writers to make a movie whose fandoms has recently proved itself to be very hostile to women and people of color.

  16. Numi says:

    They have some stiff competition in the Sci Fi Genre, Altered Carbon is wall to wall Tits, and ONE penis

  17. teacakes says:

    Ugh, why? These hacks do not deserve to get their hands on any part of Star Wars, please can they go the way of Josh Trank and Colin Trevorrow? Rian may be white too but unlike these two, he has talent.

  18. Armelle says:

    Longtime lurker here, first time poster – this enrages me too much not to react I guess.
    This is bad. I’m so disappointed/angry! All the more so than there was an interview of Reed Morano the other day on THR where she said she had a meeting with Kathleen Kennedy: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/is-reed-morano-next-star-wars-director-1075060?

    That seemed really promising and I was so excited…Only to have it ruined by D&D, just like so many GoT storylines (and I still watch and like GoT).
    I’m a huge Star Wars fan but this is so wrong on so many levels… SHAME.