Speculation as to who will direct the next Star Wars film has been flying fast and furious ever since the deal with Disney was announced.
Quite a number of interesting potential choices have been floated out there by fans, and another very intriguing possibility has just become grist for the rumor mill. It’s a director who is both very left of field, and who also has a past history in the Lucas empire.
Current speculation has Matthew Vaughn (X-Men First Class) as the front runner, but as Collider and Deadline
tell us, Jon Favreau (Iron Man) would love the job, and the real out there choice, David Fincher, may also be interested. In addition to being the dark horse candidate to direct, and Fincher also worked for ILM way back in the day. (He even has an assistant cameraman credit on Return of the Jedi).
Favreau would be a great choice for Star Wars, and it would be great to see Fincher helm it as well, although it’s doubtful Disney or Lucasfilm will give him the final cut freedom he demands, nor would they want a dark Star Wars either. Then again, Fincher has flirted with a lot of projects in the past he didn’t end up helming, like Lords of Dogtown, The Lookout, and the big screen version of Kolchak The Night Stalker, which still hasn’t come to pass.
Although Fincher said in the book Rebels on the Backlot that Jedi “sucked sh*t through a straw,” he loved the original Star Wars. As he told Rolling Stone, “I have a hundred favorites. But telling people about this one was better than actually seeing it, and seeing it was pretty great.” When he saw the Millennium Falcon go into hyperspace, “All of a sudden this whole world of possibilities opened up. At 14, you’re thinking about cars and getting out of your parents’ house. You go, ‘Wow, that’s what it would be like to blast out.’”
Again, Fincher would be a very interesting choice to have the helmer of Se7en and Fight Club direct a Star Wars film, but you also have the feeling Disney would go for a more family friendly director like a Favreau or a Vaughn.
Of course, nothing’s anywhere near official, and Lucasfilm’s keeping mum as always. When asked how Disney was able to keep the Lucasfilm deal a secret in the age of everything leaking on the Internet, Disney chairman Alan Horn told Vulture, “We threatened everybody with a blast from the Death Star!”
