Rumor: Simon Kinberg to Revise Gary Whitta’s Star Wars Spin-Off Script?

SimonKinberg11

While Gary Whitta’s departure from the first Star Wars spin-off movie has been duly noted, an official replacement writer has not yet been officially announced by Lucasfilm. Even then, rumors state that Simon Kinberg (writer of X-Men: Days Of Future Past and Star Wars Rebels: Spark Of Rebellion) shall be taking over script-revision duties.

 

From /Film:

/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.

 

Kinberg taking over writing duties here almost is a no-brainer. The guy is a well-known relief pitcher in Hollywood, coming in at the last minute to save projects. He’s got crazy geek experience and is very well-embedded at Lucasfilm not just with Rebels, but the standalones too. He was announced as one of two writers on the films years ago, but it was unclear which film was his. Rumors pointed to Josh Trank directing his film, potentially in 2018, but that’s still unconfirmed. We still don’t know if Whitta and Edwards’ film was a wholly new venture or just a rewrite of one of the first two announced films.

 

Simon Kinberg seems to be one of the more important people involved with the Star Wars franchise going forward. In spite of the switch in writers, the film is still slated for a December 2016 release date.

 

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Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

Grant Davis (Pomojema)

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

26 thoughts on “Rumor: Simon Kinberg to Revise Gary Whitta’s Star Wars Spin-Off Script?

  • January 12, 2015 at 9:54 pm
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    NOOO! Keep his and Filoni’s grubby hands off of any future star wars material!

    • January 12, 2015 at 10:06 pm
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      • January 12, 2015 at 10:15 pm
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        I agree, I’m not a fan of X-men (I bought the Xmen collection but just so that I could watch all of them, I did enjoy the first X-men reboot sort of). Looking through Kinberg’s IMDB, I’m not impressed. I’m open minded with seeing what happens if he does a standalone, but if it sucks I wouldn’t want him to do any other SW projects.

        I like Rebels, but It doesn’t feel like Star Wars to me. The slapstick goes just a tad too far, and it’s missing the gritty feel of the older films… though I appreciate Filoni’s efforts & his desire to please the EU fanboys. I also hope they get off Lothal!

  • January 12, 2015 at 9:57 pm
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    Enough Fanboy Bitching with every announcement..SERIOUSLY for Fucks Sake..it getting old!

    • January 13, 2015 at 3:41 am
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      Choosing personelle capable of delivering a good script is the most important part of this whole process. Lightsaber cross guards are trivial but this is anything but a minor detail.

    • January 14, 2015 at 5:43 am
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      You could go to the official site where dissenting opinion is not tolerated.

  • January 12, 2015 at 10:03 pm
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    Hm. And they’re going to have this film ready in 2016, are they?

    • January 12, 2015 at 10:20 pm
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      At the very end of 2016, technically a little less than 2 years from now? Yeah, they can have it done.

    • January 12, 2015 at 10:31 pm
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      GREAT LINK! “A NEW HOPE” lol

  • January 12, 2015 at 10:32 pm
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    Honestly, for those complaining about Rebels. His writing is dumbed down a lot because lets face it…its a kids/teen animated TV series and for that it isn’t supposed to be critically acclaimed dialogue. The story is pretty intriguing for such a show.

    • January 12, 2015 at 11:13 pm
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      Writing for younger audiences does NOT mean that it ought to be dumbed down. Kids and teens are a helluva lot sharper than a lot of folks give them credit for, and they’ll dig smartly written books and programs just as easily as they’ll dig dumbed-down ones. So why not give them quality rather than pablum?

      • January 13, 2015 at 12:16 am
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        There is almost no evidence to back that argument. Whether you think kids are smart or not, kids shows are very much dumbed down. If you’ll notice, in most shows aimed towards kids, they’ll repeatedly give you a bunch of information to make sure you understand what’s happening. I’m not saying that kids aren’t smart, but the people who make TV shows certainly don’t believe kids are smart.

        • January 13, 2015 at 12:26 am
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          Unless you’re George Lucas writing the prequels.

    • January 13, 2015 at 4:12 am
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      He only wrote one of the episodes anyway, the pilot ep ‘Spark of Rebellion.’ While he’s no doubt overseeing Rebels’ development, the rest of the writing on the show isn’t even his.

  • January 12, 2015 at 10:32 pm
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    New Star Wars Poster – Very plain though 🙂

  • January 12, 2015 at 10:53 pm
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    I’m betting Whitta’s script was mostly approved, he would rather move on than rewrite since all that is needed is a polish. I figure Kinberg polishes and they start filming in May.

  • January 12, 2015 at 11:02 pm
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    None of this is at all new. This is the way it’s worked on movies from the beginning of film. Movies can and often do have many,many writers from the start of the production process to the end.

    The script is at once one of the most important things when making a movie but also certainly the most over-rated thing when making a movie. The person credited as the script writer is but one of many actual writers who may have worked on it at one time never mind if the director and/or producers get there hands into it.

    Only if you have a writer who is the producer and director like the independent Star Wars was with George where even when he used Kasdan or Hales it still was his script at the end and that isn’t even going into the actual changes before the movie is shot and all the changes that happen in post.

    • January 13, 2015 at 12:25 am
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      Yeah, most movies (especially ones made by big studios like Lucasfilm) have a primary writer work on a first draft or maybe a couple drafts, but once they’re happy with it, the writer can just move on, and then the studio tweaks the draft from then on to make sure they’re still happy with it. Most studios also have in-house writers work specifically to meet the studio’s needs and often rewrite drafts over and over. Marvel uses this a lot, even with Guardians of the Galaxy: Nicole Perlman was an in-house writer for Marvel and wrote a script for the movie as a proof of concept, but then once James Gunn was brought on board he decided he wanted the movie to go in a different direction and have a completely different tone. Perlman was still credited as a writer though.

      People don’t seem to understand that Whitta just fulfilled his contract and worked on a first draft until it was done. It probably won’t be rewritten as much as some other movies like Michael Arndt’s Ep. 7 draft, but Lucasfilm’s/Disney’s in-house writers like Simon Kinberg are definitely likely to be brought on and further shape and rewrite the story as the production goes on.

  • January 13, 2015 at 12:28 am
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    Kinberg is like a quality slice of dry, white toast. Or a slow fast ball right over the plate.

  • January 13, 2015 at 2:18 am
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    i dont know what to think about this situation :/

  • January 13, 2015 at 2:10 pm
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    It’s not always helpful to know too much about the ins and outs of television or film production, and often the end result seems like a miracle given the chaos preceding it. Bear in mind that A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back were hazardous productions, up against the clock and underfunded, and that Empire and Jedi experienced drastic rewrites during their preproduction and active production stages.

    • January 16, 2015 at 2:47 am
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      err, uh, what was that?

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