In the most recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, director Zack Snyder revealed that the old rumor he had been developing a Star Wars film that he pitched to Lucasfilm in 2013 (one year after Disney acquired the studio) was in fact true. And even more? He's planning to adapt the pitch into an original concept.
Little is known about what the pitch involved except it was inspired by Akira Kurosawa movies like Seven Samurai (much like the original Star Wars trilogy) and would not have been part of the Skywalker saga, but rather be set in the immediate aftermath of Return of the Jedi. Like Seven Samurai, the film would have been about a group of Jedi warriors on a mission. Now, Snyder confirms the story has been reworked into a different idea not related to the franchise that audiences may see one day. Here is what he had to say during the podcast:
“Yeah, we talked about it, but it never…I’ve been working on it, just away from the Star Wars universe, just on my own as a sci-fi thing. It’s still a sci-fi thing, it’s the same story, it’s just kind of – let Star Wars be Star Wars. And the 11-year-old me still wants to make that. Now I just know how to, so maybe we’ll see that someday.”
He also mentioned that the original pitch didn't involve any pre-established characters from the Star Wars mythology so it wasn't a hard transition:
“My idea was just: give me the keys and I’ll take her for a spin…it was that sort of middle Star Wars time, after they had done the prequels and before the sale. I was just like, ‘You know what? I can fix that.'”
Snyder has been pouring out trivia and insight into his career a lot lately, along with unrealized projects he hopes to pursue now that he's got a deal with Netflix. One example is revealing recently that he had a Director's Cut of his original 2011 film Sucker Punch somewhere, a film that already has an Extended Cut available on Blu-Ray, but that Snyder remarks is completely different from the version audiences have seen. Whether any of these big plans come to fruition, no one can say Snyder isn't ambitious. Stay tuned!