Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss won’t be making a new Star Wars trilogy, says Deadline. Not unlike the finale of HBO’s fantasy epic, this is a disappointing end to a big show business story.
It might be easy to assume that the divisive last season of Game of Thrones may have cooled off Disney from collaborating with Benioff and Weiss. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time the Mouse House replaced filmmakers to protect its “vision” of the Star Wars brand. Disney replaced Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie) with Ron Howard (Da Vinci’s Code) on Solo: A Star Wars Story. Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) left the production of Episode IX due to creative differences. After Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) finished Rogue One, its production went on for another five weeks as Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) shot new scenes.
However, the explanation for the end of this deal might be far more mundane. This August, the duo signed a massive, nine-figure deal with Netflix for as yet undisclosed projects. Benioff and Weiss explained they wouldn’t have enough time to tackle both their Netflix projects and the production of a blockbuster movie trilogy.
“There are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects,” Benioff and Weiss said to Deadline. “So we are regretfully stepping away.”
