It’s starting to feel like there will be a new “Star Wars” movie every year for the rest of our lives.
With 2015′s “The Force Awakens,” 2016′s “Rogue One,” and with planned releases for 2017, 2018 and 2019, it’s already hard to remember an era ― a long time ago ― without the franchise annually dominating the box office.
Now, The Hollywood Reporter claims that Lucasfilm and Disney are looking to make a standalone movie centered around Obi-Wan Kenobi. Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry is in talks to direct, although there is still no script. Variety also confirmed as much.
“Daldry would oversee the development and writing with Lucasfilm brass,” per the Hollywood Reporter, if there’s a deal. It’s not known at this stage if Ewan McGregor will reprise his role.”
The project has been rumored for quite some time, with Ewan McGregor having to answer whether he would reprise the role in countless interviews. The actor played Kenobi in Episodes 1 through 3 of the series and did minor voice work as the character for the recent seventh episode, “The Force Awakens.”
Kenobi also famously appeared in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, then played by actor Alec Guinness.
“I’ve been asked this question so many times, and I answer the questions when I’m asked them because I’ve been brought up like that, polite,” McGregor said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in May. “And it’s gotten to the point where it looks like I’m touting for work at Disney’s front door. Like, ‘Give me the Obi-Wan spinoff,’ you know ... Of course, I’d be happy to do it.”
The month before, Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy had claimed her company might announce another “Star Wars” project this summer, causing speculation at the time that it would be about Kenobi.
It’s additionally been rumored that the character would make an appearance in the upcoming eighth and ninth episodes of the main series, so this might not be the first return for the character. If this project is greenlit, it would follow an upcoming spinoff movie focused on the character Han Solo, which will debut in 2018.
It’s a good thing people are watching movies digitally more and more, because a complete “Star Wars” box set of the future would have weighed a ton.
HuffPost reached out to a representative for McGregor to see if the actor would comment yet again about whether he’s coming back as Kenobi, but did not immediately hear back.
