The Star Wars Mace Windu Spinoff Might Actually Happen, Get The Details

Of the six Star Wars movies currently in the works at Disney and Lucasfilm, five have already found their directors. The saga movies are being taken care of by J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson, with the former making Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a.k.a. Star Wars: Episode VII) and the latter making Episodes VIII and IX, and both Chronicle's Josh Trank and Godzilla's Gareth Edwards have been hired to make two of the three in-the-works "spin-off" movies. So who is directing the remaining feature? New evidence suggests that the gig could belong to up-and-coming filnmaker A.J. Edwards, and it's possible that we may already know what it will be about.

In promotion of his new movie, The Better Angels, A.J. Edwards recently did an AMA session on Reddit, and when asked by a fan about his potential involvement with the future of the Star Wars franchise, he had a pretty fascinating response. Asked by a user named hanklucgodard (who had never posted on Reddit before) if there was any truth to rumors that he would direct a future Star Wars movie, Edwards responded with two comments, saying "Talking about it, not able to say a lot yet" and "It will focus on Mace Windu."

This is pretty surprising news for a number of reasons. For starters, it's bizarre that he would start by saying that he can't say anything, and then blurt out something as massive as "it's a Mace Windu movie." Secondly, making a Star Wars movie would be a huge leap for A.J. Edwards, who only just released his directorial debut (which isn't exactly getting a lot of love from critics). I'm not saying that this story is completely impossible, but it does seem a bit... off.

Pretending for a moment that this news is real, Mace Windu would definitely be an interesting as the subject for one of the Star Wars spin-off movies. While the character was certainly a popular one - played by the great Samuel L. Jackson - the narrative would likely force the story to be set back during the prequel era or even earlier given that the purple lightsaber-weilding Jedi was killed by Palpatine in Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith. That leads to the next question: would you once again bring in Samuel L. Jackson in to reprise the role and center the plot on an adult Mace Windu, or do you find an actor to play the character in his younger years?

Do you believe this story? Do you want to see A.J. Edwards get a gig directing a Star Wars movie? Would you be interested in a film about Mace Windu? Hit the comments section to tell us your thoughts.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.