James Mangold is promoting Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny, and in a recent interview, he’s looking at another once-planned project with LucasFilm.
In 2018, Mangold was attached to a Star Wars Anthology movie that would have followed the bounty hunter Boba Fett, which he was co-writing with Simon Kinberg before it was ultimately axed by the studio.
Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the filmmaker looked back at what happened to the project and said the darker tone scared them off after another Star Wars dud in Solo.
“At the point, I was doing it, I was probably scaring the shit out of everyone,” Mangold tells the podcast. “I was making much more of a borderline R-rated, single-planet Spaghetti Western. They probably would never be able to embrace Baby Yoda if I had made that. It didn’t really belong in the world I was kind of envisioning.”
“In a moment of corporate realignment or 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,” he continues. “I was just listening to [Spaghetti Western composer] 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.”
SEE ALSO: James Mangold talks about his Force origins Star Wars movie Dawn of the Jedi
Mangold will still helm a Star Wars project, however as the filmmaker is set to helm a standalone movie set centuries ago which will track the origins of the Force. As yet, the film doesn’t have a release date, but Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is out in cinemas now.
Starring along with Harrison Ford are Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”), Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”), John Rhys-Davies (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”), Shaunette Renee Wilson (“Black Panther”), Thomas Kretschmann (“Das Boot”), Toby Jones (“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”), Boyd Holbrook (“Logan”), Oliver Richters (“Black Widow”), Ethann Isidore (“Mortel”) and Mads Mikkelsen (“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”).
Directed by James Mangold, the film is produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, and Simon Emanuel, with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas serving as executive producers. John Williams, who has scored each Indy adventure since the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1981, is once again composing the score.
