Stand-Alone Movies Jon Favreau to Produce Live-Action 'Star Wars' Series

[Ozbridge]

What the hell is Bryce Dallas Howard doing on this list?

If that list is in order then she’ll probably direct episode 4.

 

[Aximili86]

Taika's kinda interesting. Famuyiwa's kinda cool.

How many episodes have they greenlight for a first season? I'd be pretty psyched to see the rest of the directors they've chosen here, those are pretty damn high-profile people by TV standards. Curious to see Bryce's one too, didn't know she did behind-the-camera work too.

Still say throw an episode/few episodes Joe Johnston's way too, given Mangold got the Boba movie and that Narnia movie fell apart. He deserves more, but it's something.

 

[Broseph44]

What the hell is Bryce Dallas Howard doing on this list?

She is directing one of the episodes

 

[Breogan]

Here's hoping it lives up to its potential. Wonder who they'll get to score it.

Not sure who is even on the table to score, but with the visuals, theme, tones they are clearlly going for, might as well play the full hand and get a score with some Ennio Morricone Concierto de Aranjuez style motifs.

This whole thing, the Mandalorian with no name set-up, theme, main character (Boba Fet style spunoff character) taken right back to his Spagheti Western roots, is pretty much the exact fantasy I played out as a kid with my custom Mandalorian figure.
That Favreau (also about my age walked out of Empire in 1980), has been apparently sitting on the story of this series for a life time, makes perfect sense.
Now it's becoming a TV series

 

[Aximili86]

Heh, I was just thinking: given this'll hit before the Boba movie, this guy's almost guaranteed to immediately out-badass anything Boba's ever done on screen when this hits.

I'm kinda neither-here-nor-there on the whole Mandalorian thing, but people are probably going to really dig this character, under something like this with a Favreau tone.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Oh man. Everything about this sounds fantastic. Love the talent involved and the premise sounds cool. I'm glad it takes place between the OT and TFA, because we haven't explored that era yet. Have we heard whether Pedro Pascal is definitely playing the lead? Because he'd be perfect for this.

 

[Brother Jack]

I'm seriously jazzed about this. Great premise, (relatively) unexplored time period, stellar director lineup.

 

[OtherwiseKnownAs]

Anyone wanna tell me why this got a sub-forum in the TV boards, and not in the Star Wars boards?

 

[Ozbridge]

I find it odd too. Both Rebels and TCW have own sub-forum in the Star Wars board.

Btw ************** posts the list of episodes and directors:

• 101 Dave Filoni
• 102 Rick Famuyiwa
• 103 Deborah Chow
• 104 Bryce Dallas Howard
• 105 Dave Filoni
• 106 Rick Famuyiwa
• 107 Deborah Chow
• 108 Taika Waititi

The Star Wars: The Mandalorian directors and which episode numbers they will be directing! | Making Star Wars

 

[Elayis]

It's interesting that Favreau won't be directing at all, I thought that was a given when his involvement was announced.

 

[Aximili86]

Maybe a season finale or something. Keep in mind we don't have all the directors yet from the sounds of things, they just announced a handful. Don't think they've announced how many episodes a first season's going to run, anything's on the cards still.

 

[Breogan]

Fan art -

Also great that he picked up you can tell by the butt of the rifle slung on his back, is like the one used by the original animated Fett

 

[Ozbridge]

It's interesting that Favreau won't be directing at all, I thought that was a given when his involvement was announced.

Maybe the first season will have 10 episodes and he will direct the season finale (though I doubt it, since usually if showrunners are directors they tend to direct series premiere to set the tone of the whole series). But it's said that Favreau will write for the series, so maybe he chooses to do writing plus hiring directors/ other writers only.

 

[BaelaTargaryen]

 

[Elayis]

So are they acting or directing (or both)? Which is it?

 

[Aximili86]

Both, if the acting thing is legit. They're definitely directing at least one episode.

 

[Elayis]

Sounds good to me. Reminds me of how Frakes and Burton directed a bunch of episodes for TNG and the subsequent series. Just not sure about Howard with this being her directorial debut (prior to this she's only done short films).

 

[Aximili86]

So do plenty of indie-type directors that get TV or movie gigs though, gotta start somewhere I guess.

 

[Lilbaz]

So do plenty of indie-type directors that get TV or movie gigs though, gotta start somewhere I guess.

She should be fine. The script, costumes, actors, set etc... will all be sorted for her. She just has to film it. She'll also have john overlooking it.

It's not like it's her first time on a film set.

 

[Ozbridge]

I've heard that TV directors are basically hired guns to execute exactly showrunners' vision. They wield much less creativity power than movie directors.

 

[Aximili86]

Yeah, Favreau's obviously the big dog on this. For example, while Taika's ep is probably going to be more light-hearted and breezy/funny, I seriously doubt he's going all Ragnarok/What We Did In The Shadows with it. It'll just be a funnier snarkier episode within the general tonal framework Jon's set.

I wouldn't worry about Howard either, no reason to think she won't deliver. Pedigree there, sure she's picked stuff up over the years through her dad and her pretty-extensive acting experience, and in addition to that this is Lucasfilm/Disney, she'll have all the support a director could ever want. A problem/obstacle comes up, just go ask one of the crew people who have been working on all this **** since Empire/Raiders or whatever to find a solution.

 

[Elayis]

Being around talented directors does not automatically give you the necessary chops. Filmmaking is about a lot more than the basic craft of directing. Maybe I'm being skeptical for no good reason, I just haven't seen many cases where a first time director does a good job on a project of this scale. Maybe with it being a tv show instead of a feature the support structure in place will smooth over any problems that come up.

You're post reminded me of what some people have said about giving Kinberg a chance with Dark Phoenix and it rubbed me the wrong way. At least Howard doesn't have the same troubled history with SW that Kinberg has with his franchise.

I'm by no means worried about the show now, just a little cautious. Even if it turns out badly (which may or may not happen), it's only a single episode out of an entire season's worth. I'm still very excited about The Mandalorian and hope Howard does a terrific job.

 

[Aximili86]

I mean, I get that Bryce is sort of an extreme example in that she's directed basically nothing, couple of shorts aside, but that's kind of a flawed argument in a macro sense.

The Russos had never handled a budget, resources of scale, or really done anything in the way of action pre-The Winter Soldier. Coogler was arguably a gamble pre-Creed. Hell, Favreau himself for Iron Man, he wasn't exactly a proven quantity on that level of project at the time. Yes, they had more of a resume going for them than Bryce, but it's the same concept.

I think you'd be right if it were more like an original property, a studio taking a gamble on someone like Bryce and throwing them an action-heavy blockbuster movie or big expensive Game Of Thrones type episode out of nowhere, but it's a little different with Lucasfilm & the Disney machine I'd imagine. Someone else has likely written the thing, it's all been vetted quality-wise and maybe even storyboarded out before she even comes aboard. You've got a (now) experienced guy like Favreau godfathering it all, probably right there on-set, Kennedy & Co too. If she has any questions, or if it's not looking to be turning out well while actually in production, there are plenty of people to steer her back on course and guide her through it.

And even that sounds a little harsh on Bryce herself, assuming she needs the hand-holding. Yeah, we haven't seen anything she's done, but that's not necessarily reason to doubt her either. Again, you've gotta start somewhere, and on a project by a studio and Hollywood team her dad's run with going back decades is as good a spot as any. I don't think anyone's necessarily saying she has inherited her dad's chops, but there's just not really cause to write her off either. It's an episode of a TV show, not some huge financial gamble. Plenty of actual TV show showrunners have never directed anything major before (hell, look at Whedon on Buffy, Abrams on Felicity then Alias), let alone people doing one episode (that we know of). She'll be fine, especially with Favreau hanging around.


EDIT: As for your Kinberg example, Dark Phoenix looks awesome. He co-wrote Days Of Future Past too, people love to cite Apocalypse while omitting the former. I'm not worried in the slightest about that flick.

 

[Mjolnir Reborn]

This project has taken on the burden of all my hope for Star Wars at the moment. While Solo was the first new film to not be a negative surprise I still don't have much faith in the film franchise with what I know right now, but this show project sounds very interesting.

Favreau is an interesting showrunner and the addition of a directorial voice like Waititi definitely increases excitement. The synopsis also sounds intriguing. The films have taken old concepts and made them worse, but here I see a lot of potential of doing the opposite. This may end up being what we hoped that the Fetts would have been when we got closer looks at them.

 

[TheVileOne]

I wonder if Howard or Waititi will be regulars or one-offs characters.