Andy Weir, the author behind The Martian and Project Hail Mary, has a plan for the Star Wars movies: stop starting new wars. In an interview with SlashFilm published on 2 November, he said the franchise should return to the Galactic Civil War and follow different people living through it. IGN was among the outlets that picked up the comments.
Weir’s complaint is about what happens after the heroes win. He told SlashFilm that a story built around a monumental war should leave the good guys’ victory intact, and that it’s “very unsatisfying” when a franchise rolls into another one. SlashFilm links that frustration to The Force Awakens, which replaced the Empire and the Rebellion with the First Order and the Resistance. Weir didn’t name any film himself in the comments published.
His fix borrows from history. Weir pointed to World War II, where the outcome is settled but writers still produce fiction about the people who lived through it, and said the Galactic Civil War could work the same way: established canon, with room for stories about other people. He framed it as a personal view, adding that he’s “not George Lucas” and that it “might be a terrible idea”. SlashFilm notes that Weir accepts Luke, Leia and Han as the “movers and shakers” of the era, but sees room for smaller, tangential stories around them.
Andor is the obvious comparison, and Weir brought it up with enthusiasm. He praised the Disney+ series as intellectual, clever and extremely well written, and said making it a series was the right call. A film has about two hours to tell its whole story, he said, so Andor is “not something that you could make into a movie”. SlashFilm’s reading is that Weir sees Rogue One, rather than Andor, as the template for the big screen.
The timing is notable. SlashFilm describes the franchise as coming off a rough patch, with the big screen quiet since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019 until The Mandalorian and Grogu earlier this year, which it calls tepidly received. It adds that a reported Simon Kinberg trilogy appears to follow Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling, next year. SlashFilm says Lucasfilm is betting on looking further ahead in the timeline, which is the opposite of Weir’s pitch.
Weir is doing the rounds because of his other work. SlashFilm says he’s executive producing the upcoming Audible original sci-fi series Exoplanet, and the film of Project Hail Mary arrived this year. IGN adds that he told SlashFilm it’s “only a matter of time” before AI spreads into writing careers like his, and that he “might be among the last generation of fully human writers”. For more from the same press run, see what he said about the one scene he regrets losing from the Project Hail Mary film.
Is Andy Weir working on a Star Wars project?
No. Weir described what he would do “if in charge” of the franchise, and he stressed it was his own opinion. Neither SlashFilm nor IGN reports any involvement from him with Lucasfilm.
What does Andy Weir think of Andor?
He loves it, calling it amazing, clever and extraordinarily well written. He thinks it worked because it was a series, and says its story couldn’t be squeezed into a two-hour film.
Which Star Wars movies are next?
SlashFilm says Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling, is due next year, followed by a reported Simon Kinberg trilogy. Neither project is confirmed beyond that reporting.
