Game of Thrones creators finally reveal plans for scrapped Star Wars movies

Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have finally broken their vow of silence regarding their mysteriously canceled Star Wars project.

It may seem like a lifetime has passed but it wasn’t too long ago Benioff and Weiss were on top of the world. Steering the ship for HBO’s most successful property at the time, a peerless cultural phenomenon in Game of Thrones, the duo all but had the film and TV industry in the palm of their hand.

Among their first projects after Thrones was set to be in collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm on yet another blockbuster IP, Star Wars. D&D were effectively given the green light for their own trilogy in a galaxy far, far away, though progress quickly came to a screeching halt.

Years of silence from the ex-GoT showrunners was interrupted in 2019 as the duo exited the franchise under mysterious conditions. Now reemerging with their first post-GoT project, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, the duo has finally lifted the veil on just what happened with their scrapped Star Wars project.

“We wanted to do The First Jedi,” Benioff said in conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, their first major interview in years. The first film in their trilogy was allegedly set to track “how the Jedi Order came to be, why it came to be,” and the creation of “the first lightsaber.”

However, the project simply didn’t pan out at the time. Benioff claimed it was Lucasfilm’s decision not to head in that direction, as they “ended up not wanting to do a First Jedi story.”

If this all sounds familiar, you’re not mistaken. Announced just months ago during the 2023 Star Wars Celebration was James Mangold’s project, a film described as a “biblical epic,” one set to follow the “dawn of the Jedi,” 25,000 years before A New Hope. Essentially the same idea, Mangold’s upcoming flick largely mirrors what D&D were seemingly hoping to accomplish years prior before being shot down.

“We had a very specific story idea in mind,” Benioff continued, “and ultimately they decided they didn’t want to do that. And we totally get it. It’s their company and their IP, but we weren’t the droids they were looking for.”

It’s unclear why D&D’s version of this tale was canceled while Mangold’s was locked in on the upcoming slate of Star Wars productions. Perhaps we’ll never know for certain.

Though with D&D’s 3 Body Problem looking to turn heads in the coming months on Netflix, the acclaimed duo is set to be back in the spotlight once again, so it could just be a matter of time before further details surface.