Director Zack Snyder has recently spoken about the plans he once pitched to Lucasfilm for a Kurosawa-inspired Star Wars film. Snyder, whose latest film Army of the Dead has just hit screens via streaming giant Netflix, is no stranger to working on big-budget tentpole franchises, having steered the early days of the DCEU with Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. He also returned to deliver his cut of the infamous Justice League after previously stepping away from the theatrical cut.
Rumors of Snyder’s potential involvement in a Star Wars project had been floated as early as 2012, before Disney’s takeover of the franchise in October of that year. Some of the earliest reports had even linked him as a potential director to tackle the highly anticipated Episode VII prior to J.J. Abrams taking charge, a claim that both Snyder and his representatives quickly debunked at the time. As it turned out, he had indeed pitched an idea to Lucasfilm for a Seven Samurai-inspired standalone Star Wars film, based on the influential Akira Kurosawa 1954 classic.
More recently, when speaking with Josh Harowitz at the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder offered a few more tidbits about the idea that “the 11-year-old me, you know, still wants to make”. Confirming that he did indeed pitch to Lucasfilm before the Disney take-over, he also suggests that it is an idea he still wants to return to outside of the blockbuster franchise. Snyder elaborated on his request for Lucasfilm to “just give me keys, and I'll take her for a spin”:
We talked about it, but it never, you know, I mean, I've been working on it just away from the Star Wars universe just for on my own, just as a sci-fi thing... It’s kind of like it's still a sci-fi thing. It's the same story, just now I’m kind of like let Star Wars be Star Wars.. so maybe we'll see that someday.
Kurosawa was one of the major influences on George Lucas when he first began to develop the original Star Wars films. Even the name “Jedi” owes its origins to the term “Jidai Geki," so Snyder’s original pitch was probably right on the money. Certainly, a Seven Samurai-styled Jedi adventure is something that most Star Wars fans would keenly welcome into the ever-growing franchise. Even newly announced Lucasfilm Executive Creative Director Dave Filoni tapped heavily into Kurosawa’s films for inspiration on his The Mandalorian "Chapter 13: The Jedi," which served as the first live-action appearance of Ahsoka Tano ahead of her character's spin-off series.
Unfortunately, it seems Synder will never get the chance to make his own entry into the world’s biggest and most beloved sci-fi franchise, but at least there is some comfort in the fact he still plans to make a Kurosawa inspired sci-fi adventure on his terms. Also, given Snyder’s more recent experiences with high-pressure tentpole films and studio interference, he would probably be a lot more comfortable working within a sci-fi universe entirely of his creation. In the meantime, Star Wars itself certainly has no shortage of its own content planned going forward.
Source: Happy Sad Confused
