James Mangold Details How His ‘Star Wars’ Film Will Be Pre-Jedi, the Boba Fett Film He Never Made, and Why He Has Not Talked to George Lucas Yet
James Mangold was recently a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, chatting with Josh Horowitz for 40 minutes about his experience filming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, as well as his upcoming projects, including the Star Wars film he was announced to be developing.
As revealed during Star Wars Celebration, Mangold will be exploring the origins of the Jedi during the newly-named Dawn of the Jedi era, which takes place 25,000 years before the Skywalker Saga. Removing himself so much from what Lucasfilm has been developing was a key component of his idea for the film, he revealed, since he feels like the universe has become very entangled and that every new story is walking a fine line between being new and original, and not contradicting anything that may have happened somewhere else. Mangold even let slip a loud cheer before explaining his approach:
“When I talked to some of the Star Wars clerics that keep track of all of these timelines, I was like ‘So when would this happen.’ And they were like ‘25,000 years before Episode I,’ and I was like ‘Oh, I was looking for some distance, but that’s distance.’ I’ll do it, I might find Charlton Heston in an abandoned subway station but I’ll do it.
The reality for me is that that feeling of space, no pun intended, was something that I felt was really important not to get away from fan service or the intricacies of what George had set up and dreamed of, but to just have the space to tell a story and not be instantly encumbered with the bases you have to hit. Which, honestly, there’s no way to explain it to folks other than to say it’s like that game we played as kids, ‘Twister.’ At a certain point, you are in a tangle, because you’re just trying to find ways to tell a story with so many constraints that you can’t.”
The Charlton Heston namedrop is a reference to The Ten Commandments, a movie that James Mangold has labeled as inspiration for the story he wants to tell in a galaxy far, far away. But this wouldn’t be the first time he’s writing a new Star Wars movie, as the director confirmed recently those 2018 reports about him developing a Boba Fett film that was ultimately axed by the studio in the aftermath of Solo underperforming at the box office:
“At the point I was doing it, I was probably scaring the shit out of everyone. But I was making much more of a borderline, rated R, single-planet spaghetti Western. They probably would never be able to embrace Baby Yoda if I had made that. So it didn’t really belong in the world I was kind of envisioning.
In a moment of corporate realignment for whatever happened with the Han Solo movie, they just suddenly decided they weren’t making pictures like that, and the opportunities in streaming presented themselves.
I was just listening to Ennio Morricone all day, all night, and typing away. I’m not sure it ever would have happened, I’m not sure it was in anyone’s plans what I was thinking.”
Mangold was also asked if we will be hearing the words “Jedi” or “midichlorian” in the film. While he didn’t give a definitive answer, from his quote it definitely sounds like we will not be hearing them before the final moments of the story, at best:
“I don’t wanna make any guarantees one way or another, but it will be before Jedi. Meaning, you might be experiencing something that might become Jedi. Despite the fact that people make movies other ways, I don’t tend to think people brand themselves before they’ve actually found themselves. So you don’t come up with a name for your organization before [you understand what it is.]”
The writer-director was also asked about his collaboration with George Lucas, who did read the script for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and apparently liked Mangold’s prior film Ford v Ferrari (of course George liked it…fast cars). He explained that he hasn’t brought up the topic in conversation yet, because it’s very early days in the process and he wants to have a clear idea of what the film is going to look like before he gets into that room with him:
“I have not had a chance to talk to George about what I’m thinking. He was involved [with Indiana Jones] and read the script and was a Ford v Ferrari fan, I’m told. But it’d be very interesting to talk to him. I’m very protective of myself. Even describing meeting Bob Dylan in relation to the Dylan film, I like to have my shit together before I get into those kinds of situations because every good idea skates at the very edge of being precipitously awful, and every safe idea never gets to that end.
So the trick is always to develop your idea enough that your compatriots and consultants and mentors can understand how you’re avoiding going over the edge, not just daring it. Obviously, as a writer, I’m on strike right now. So those solutions and that process is not gonna happen.”
According to reports, James Mangold is expected to shoot A Complete Unknown over the summer and, if the strike has finished by then, he would get to work on Star Wars by the fall. No release date has been set yet, but if that production schedule is followed, and Mangold’s next film after the Dylan biopic is indeed Star Wars (he also has Swamp Thing set up at DC Studios), he could make it to the December 2027 date Disney is holding.
Check out the full conversation below:
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
