Zack Snyder Will Not Direct Star Wars: Episode VII
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We’re little more than a week removed from the four-billion-dollar sale of Lucasfilm to Disney. More exciting to fans than the actual business transaction is the revelation that the House That Mickey Built intends to start work on a new Star Wars trilogy, with the first film slated for release in 2015. Already news surrounding the next installment, Episode VII, has been flying fast and furious. We’ve heard rumors and reports about returning stars, screenwriters, and potential directors. While many names have been bandied about regarding the job, one big-time director has scratched his name off the list.
Man of Steel and Dawn of the Dead helmer Zack Snyder has come out saying he isn’t interested in the position. He said, “I don’t think I’d be interested in [directing it]…I’m a huge Star Wars fanatic. I just think doing [episodes] seven, eight and nine is just a slippery slope. It’s a whole other mythological experiment I’m excited to see, but it’s a lot of effort.”
That makes perfect sense, not wanting to step in and potentially tarnish a franchise that you love. Think of the pressure. Fans would never forgive you if you screw it up. Hell, George Lucas is the man responsible for giving us Star Wars in the first place, but there are still millions of fans worldwide who will never get over what he did to his own franchise.
This isn’t a huge loss. Snyder’s films are big on spectacle but short on everything else, like character, story, and emotion. Watchmen was an empty exercise in a nearly shot-for-shot recreation of a comic book, Suckerpunch is nothing but glitzy eye candy, and to date his most earnest, affecting film is an animated children’s movie, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole. Star Wars: Episode VII needs something more than vapid visual pyrotechnics to recommend it.
At the moment the two most likely candidates for the job, at least as far as the rumor mill goes, are Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) and Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass), after his sudden departure from X-Men: Days of Future Past.
