Caffeinated Clint
Chris Weitz, the “Cinderella” scribe who next turns his attention to the Princesses of the Galaxy, tells Collider that he’s as jazzed as Armstrong to be working on the upcoming (Han Solo/Boba Fett-centric) “Star Wars” standalone movie.
“I couldn’t have imagined it”, Weitz tells the site, buzzed to work with director Gareth Edwards on the 2016 film. “It’s a total dream job. The reason I make movies now has a lot to do with having seen Star Wars when I was seven years old. That’s the formative movie-going experience of my life. But, I don’t think I’m unique in that. Everybody who’s working on the movie was affected, in that way. I think it’s so incredibly special to be able to try to recapitulate that feeling I had when I was sitting in that theater, as a 7-year-old. It’s an extraordinary job. I’m incredibly lucky.”
Weitz, whose earlier credits include “In Good Company” and “About a Boy”, is determined not to rape his own childhood by screwing up the ‘Wars.
“I think that everybody involved feels such a sense of duty and responsibility to the franchise and to their own childhood memories that everybody is heading in the same direction.”
Gary Whitta was originally on screenplay duties for the film, and Weitz touched on how his script will differ from the former’s while speaking to /Film.
“Um…I mean it all eventually comes down to understanding the nature of what a given film is and making the characters people who you want to be as invested in as possible. I think in this case I’m not working from a whole cloth, right? So there’s a very strong structure from Gary’s work and that’s a huge advantage to me. But just like with Cinderella, it’s a director’s medium so it’s really about my making what Gareth needs to do his film.”
Weitz, not unfamiliar with beloved franchises having written the third “Twilight” flick, says he’s staying away from googling ‘fan theories’.
“I try not to read it because I don’t know how it would help me do the job that I have to do, which is to make the very best version of this movie possible. I think it was good to know a bit of what fans are hoping for but then again, I’m a fan as well so I know what I’m hoping for and I try to sort of take that as my lead and not get my head too occupied with what’s on the Internet.”
While it’s only rumours, some solid intel suggests the film is a heist film that involves such characters as Han Solo and Boba Fett, and takes place before the events of “Star Wars Episode IV : A New Hope”.
The untitled movie is due for release December 16, 2016.
