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If you didn’t know that Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi were both written and directed by the same person, you may not know it at a glance. Though both movies feature big ensemble casts and deconstructions of these larger narrative archetypes, one being an original movie and one being part of a major franchise certainly makes them feel very different. For Rian Johnson, the mind behind both movies, none of that matters as he breaks it all down in a new interview discussing the differences in penning both scripts. As he tells it, the larger world or franchise doesn’t matter, all that matters is the story.
“I don’t really think in terms of universes, or in terms of creating worlds or whatever, that’s not that interesting to me,” Johnson told THR. “The only thing that’s interesting to me is story, and the story specific to whether you’re writing a Star Wars film that’s part of a three movie trilogy or a “original thing” like Knives Out, you’re still telling a story that’s new to the thing that you’re doing that has to work within the context of that movie.”
“So to me the notion of ‘What’s the entire galaxy or world that you’re creating or something,’ I can’t imagine getting excited about creating that to me,” he added. “What I’m excited about is creating a two hour long experience for an audience to have in the theater, and that means how they engage moment to moment with the story and the characters that are on screen, and that doesn’t change in either one of those (cases).”
Thanks to the tremendous box office and critical success of Knives Out, which brought in over $305 million worldwide, Lionsgate and Johnson are moving forward with a sequel. The filmmaker previously revealed that with the upcoming sequel we’ll get an all-new investigation featuring Daniel Craig‘s Benoit Blanc as opposed to seeing the specific narrative of Knives Out explored even further.
In addition to doing more work in the world of Knives Out, Johnson remains in talks with Lucasfilm to continue playing in the galaxy far, far away. Ahead of the release of The Last Jedi it was announced that he would develop a new trilogy of films in the Star Wars franchise which would be separate from the Skywalker Saga, but the actual premise of these movies remains to be seen.
Stay tuned for details on the Knives Out sequel and Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy.
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