Zack Snyder has revealed he still plans to make his long-rumoured Star Wars film – but it’s no longer going to be attached to the sci-fi franchise.
Back in 2013, when Snyder was gearing up to release Man Of Steel, news broke that he was developing a Star Wars movie inspired by Akira Kurosawa.
According to Vulture, Snyder’s film was going to be separate from the new trilogy of Star Wars movies, Episodes VII, VIII and IX, but set within the Star Wars galaxy.
The report stated that it would be a “Jedi epic loosely based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic Seven Samurai, with the ronin and katana being replaced by the Force-wielding knights and their iconic lightsabers.”
Often listed among the greatest films of all time, Seven Samurai is known to be a personal favourite of George Lucas’. It focuses on a village of farmers who hire seven ronin – or masterless samurai – to combat bandits planning to steal their crops.
Snyder denied the report. A spokesperson for the director told The Hollywood Reporter: “While he is super-flattered because he is a huge fan, Zack is not involved in any way with the new Star Wars. He is currently in post on his two films, Man Of Steel and 300: Battle Of Artemisia.”
Not much has been said about the rumoured project in the eight years since, but Snyder has now confirmed that a discussion with Lucasfilm about the movie did take place and that George Lucas even offered the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi to Seven Samurai star Toshiro Mifune. Snyder also revealed that the project is not completely dead.
“We talked about it, but it never [happened],” Snyder told the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I’ve been working on it away from the Star Wars universe, on my own, as a sci-fi thing… It’s still a sci-fi thing. It’s the same story. Now, I’m just going to let Star Wars be Star Wars.”
He added: “The 11-year-old me still wants to make that, and now, I know how to. So, maybe we’ll see that someday.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Snyder revealed who he had in mind to play Batman in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice if Ben Affleck had turned the role down.
