Simon Kinberg Clarifies his Role in Crafting the Upcoming Star Wars Films

Simon KinbergIn a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Fantastic Four and X-Men: Apocalypse writer Simon Kinberg sat down to discuss his role in writing for the Star Wars franchise. And although it was well known that he is writing one of the upcoming Anthology films as well as writing and producing Star Wars: Rebels, he expanded on what role he had in shaping the story of all of the upcoming cinematic releases in the Star Wars franchise, including The Force Awakens.

 

 

“I’m like a friend of the court. I consult on the movies. I worked on VII: helped break the story, read scripts, drafts at certain points, and gave my thoughts whatever they were worth.”

 

Kinberg also dives into more detail as to what that means exactly, giving a fascinating peek into the early process of breaking the story of the upcoming trilogy at a retreat with Lawrence Kasdan and original Screenwriter Michael Arndt.

“Like a TV writers room, we spent a week with a whiteboard and some pens and were in a conference room all day talking about [movies] VII, VIII, and IX. But it’s a whiteboard covered in our notes. We had a sense of what we each wanted to write. It was the most magical time because we were writing Star Wars movies. Then we would go back to the inn at Skywalker and have dinner and drink a little bit and Larry would tell me and Michael stories about the moment in his life where he wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, The Big Chill, Body Heat all in the span of, I think, five years. So we just had this crazy, magical time together.”

 

It is unknown how much of this story session will make it into the final product for the upcoming trilogy. As he lists Arndt in attendance, it’s very possible that significant changes occurred afterwards. But, it is clear that he is still heavily involved with the universe at least in a consultant role.

 

 

Check out EW for the full article.

 

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23 thoughts on “Simon Kinberg Clarifies his Role in Crafting the Upcoming Star Wars Films

  • August 5, 2015 at 3:47 pm
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    it started to happen to me to get here more often as one of the first readers….

  • August 5, 2015 at 3:55 pm
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    Would have loved to be in that room

  • August 5, 2015 at 4:16 pm
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    Very interesting! It contradicts the accepted version (which may have been nothing more than rumour) that Michael Arndt and his script were ditched by Disney in favour of JJ and Kasdan’s ‘completely new’ script.

  • August 5, 2015 at 4:31 pm
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    First!

  • August 5, 2015 at 4:36 pm
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    Nice to see he is involved in some regards at least!

  • August 5, 2015 at 5:05 pm
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    I am so genuinely excited that so many people potentially contributed aspects of the new movies. I love the idea that they can cherry pick all of the best creative ideas (even if all they pick from one person is a simple but wonderful character moment). Reminds me of conversations with friends were we riff off each other coming up with compelling story arcs and character moments for things like Star Trek and Star Wars (often re-writing/armchair quarterbacking what was already made). Margaret Heffernan said it best at TED “in groups that are highly attuned and sensitive to each other, ideas can flow and grow. People don’t get stuck. They don’t waste energy down dead ends.”

  • August 5, 2015 at 5:05 pm
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    No, I’m first

  • August 5, 2015 at 5:06 pm
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    Can the mods start banning all the braindead halfwits who continue to post with the ‘first’ comment bullshit. It was not funny 10 years ago and it’s not funny now.

    • August 6, 2015 at 8:44 am
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      Hell, it wasn’t funny 20 years ago…

      Damn, I’m old.

  • August 5, 2015 at 5:24 pm
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    Simon, don’t piss on your shoulders and tell me “it’s raining.”

    • August 5, 2015 at 10:51 pm
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      What does that mean exactly? Honest question.. not hating

  • August 5, 2015 at 6:01 pm
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    So it looks like they worked out the general story for the whole trilogy?

    Did this happen before Kasdan was even announced? I don’t remember hearing his name until Arndt departed… or am I mistaken?

    • August 5, 2015 at 7:25 pm
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      From previous articles it did seem like they ditched Arndt and in comes Kasdan with a re-write with J.J. From this article, it seems like more of what happened with Whitta on Rogue One. Kasdan, Kinberg, and Arndt coming up with a general direction and plot concept for the trilogy and then J.J. and Kasdan working out the details specifically for TFA. For some reason, I just pictured these three guys sitting around a table at Skywalker Ranch in a scene reminiscent of the battle-scar scene from Jaws…Kasdan points to a scar on his chest…”Kathleen Kennedy…she broke my heart (smiles).” 🙂

    • August 5, 2015 at 7:32 pm
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      Kasdan was in pretty early on, I’m not sure, there was definitely overlap time-wise. I thought Kasdan was announced more or less just before the Table Read photo.

  • August 5, 2015 at 7:24 pm
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    what a lucky motherf*****!!

  • August 5, 2015 at 7:40 pm
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    I understand Kinberg will handle Boba Fett standalone
    movie script, so he even recommend josh trank involvement because of his collaboration in upcoming Fantastic Four movie. He is extremely busy guy handling X men franchise, new Ridely Scott film, and other 20th Fox movies. He seems to have a good understanding of SW mythology, but can’t have enough availability because of Fox commitment.
    it has been more than 3 years since he took on the script of Boba script.

  • August 6, 2015 at 1:30 am
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    Fantastic four is rumored to be just terrible.
    Very sad face.

  • August 6, 2015 at 2:06 am
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    He wrote x men the last stand! What a mistake. Killing off all the main characters, sure that’ll go down well….

    • August 6, 2015 at 2:37 am
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      Yes, many X men fan doubt his writing skill due to poor storyline of the franchise. But his contribution for Rebels has been not bad.

      • August 6, 2015 at 4:52 pm
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        Not bad is good enough for everyone else. Lucasfilm should demand excellence like they used to.

  • August 6, 2015 at 6:09 am
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    He sucks! I like him even less now if he was the one responsible for the FF abomination. Only Michael Bay would have been a worse choice for his position.

  • August 6, 2015 at 4:40 pm
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    this guy should have been banned from Hollywood after his XMEN fail.

  • August 7, 2015 at 2:41 am
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    After the real bad bad bad bad bad reviews of F4 script, i’m glad he is out of EVII.
    And hope Disney will open their eyes and tell him no to write any star wars film in the future.
    I usually don’t pay attention most of reviews but this F4 seems really bad. The actual Hollywood problem. Lots of blockbusters have great ideas but the 2-3-4 handed scripts normally are for stupid people.
    And i really think Disney will not pay attention to his next star wars chapters ideas.

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