Midnight Mass creator Mike Flanagan reveals his interest in making a Star Wars horror movie. After writing and directing three student films, Flanagan turned to the horror genre with his professional directorial debut Absentia, which was funded through Kickstarter for just $70,000. Since then, he's stuck with the genre almost exclusively, making a number of films and miniseries that have earned him both critical acclaim and a loyal fanbase.
While his 2016 slasher Hush became something of a cult film on Netflix, Flanagan really rose to global prominence as filmmaker in 2018, when the streaming service released his horror series The Haunting of Hill House. The show based on Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel of the same name practically made the Massachusetts-born director a household name among horror fans, establishing him as one of the genre's leading contemporary creatives. A more collaborative follow-up series, The Haunting of Bly Manor, premiered in 2020, but this year's supernatural horror show Midnight Mass is the director's most recent solo-project and is currently available to stream on Netflix.
While Midnight Mass realizes a passion-project for Flanagan, the 43-year-old is not stopping there, and he has aspirations to apply his genre talents to other franchises. Taking to social media, the director shares that he was woken up by the earthquake that shook California over the weekend, leaving him with a few extra minutes to sit and think. The dream project that kept coming to mind, Flanagan says, was a Star Wars horror movie. Check out his original tweet below:
Naturally, this revelation set off a wave of online speculation about what this could mean for the Star Wars universe, with others in the industry even voicing their enthusiasm for the idea. Fellow filmmaker Edgar Wright jokingly responded with "Don't Be Afraid Of The Darth," while Midnight Mass star Rahul Kohli, who also worked with Flanagan on The Haunting Of Bly Manor, expressed his excitement by saying "Ohhhhhhh you’ve been reading my diary!" At this point, the statement from Flanagan seems to be nothing more than voicing a desire, but with the future of the Star Wars franchise unclear and his stature as a filmmaker continuing to rise, there's no reason his dream project couldn't some day become a reality.
What exactly a Star Wars horror movie would look like is anyone's guess, though it is a franchise with the potential to explore different genres, and which could prove very interesting for an innovative director. Currently up next for Flanagan is the horror mystery-thriller streaming series The Midnight Club, which is scheduled for a 2022 release, as well as a recently announced project called The Fall Of House Usher, inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. In the Star Wars universe, the movie Rogue Squadron is planned for a 2023 release, and Flanagan fans will be hoping that the franchise's long-term future includes a stand-alone entry from their favorite horror director.
Source: Mike Flanagan/Twitter
