Christopher McQuarrie is already locked in to write and direct two more Mission: Impossible movies after the success of Fallout. He also co-wrote the script for Top Gun: Maverick, which just revealed another new look today before the second trailer tomorrow. But what about Star Wars?
Well, there was a time when he wanted to make a Star Wars movie, but angry Star Wars: The Last Jedi viewers "cured" him of that. But a recent tweet would suggest he's still up for the challenge.
Christopher McQuarrie put himself on the cinematic writing map with his script for The Usual Suspects. After directing The Way of the Gun, the first Jack Reacher, and both M:I - Rogue Nation and Fallout, he's also established himself as a strong director of big movies. What's bigger than Star Wars? (Don't answer that, Marvel.)
A fan recently tagged the director when tweeting that he'd like to see Christopher McQuarrie direct a Star Wars movie at some point. McQuarrie replied "They know where to find me."
Lucasfilm appears to be putting Star Wars movies on hiatus after the end of the Skywalker Saga with Rise of Skywalker. However, there's a lot of chatter about what Rian Johnson could still do, plus whatever Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige is doing. There's room for more creative voices in the future -- whether that future is just on the big screen or also Disney+ like The Mandalorian.
I, for one, do hope Lucasfilm finds Christopher McQuarrie and just opens up the floor. What would you do if given the keys to the Star Wars kingdom? Then sit back and listen.
Back in 2016, Christopher McQuarrie was asked when he would write a Star Wars movie, and he shared an idea about a Young Lando movie with Michael B. Jordan and the Millennium Falcon. Obviously Lucasfilm went in a different direction with Solo and Donald Glover as Landon.
Christopher McQuarrie deleted his response after he got caught up in the angry Star Wars fandom after an otherwise innocent exchange with his friend, Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson.
Rian Johnson had brought up following McQuarrie for various notes on filmmaking, which is still good advice. McQuarrie tweeted something on the June 2018 anniversary of The Twilight Zone host Rod Serling's death, appreciating how the show added social commentary. Users replied with distaste for the SJW agenda. Rian Johnson chimed in with defense and it turned ugly with The Last Jedi commenters.
That's when Christopher McQuarrie tweeted this to Rian Johnson:
My friend, After five minutes of this, I don’t know why you’re still on Twitter. I would have loved to make a Star Wars film someday. I’m cured.
Someone else asked if there was a superhero story he was interested in making. In that case, he replied (via Comicbook):
Nah, after tonight I think I’m good. It saddens me, too. I consider myself first and foremost an entertainer. I work for the audience. Tonight I found people I could never work for.
Collider talked to Christopher McQuarrie not long after that Twitter exchange and asked about the "toxic fandom" debate in relation to Star Wars and beyond:
I can tell you from my limited experience -- I got caught up as an innocent bystander in a bunch of Star Wars stuff. Look, movies are very emotional. They’re extremely, extremely emotional. A movie like Star Wars or movies like Marvel where you’re dealing with comic books, this is stuff that’s coming from their childhood. It’s the same thing as campfire stories, and in some cases it’s the very fabric of their growing up. It’s something of which they’re hugely protective.
He continued that he understood why they were angry and listened to their complaints and engaged with some directly and it confirmed everything he felt -- that when you mess with fans expectations, this is the reaction you're going to get. That's true of Game of Thrones fans as well -- and the Game of Thrones showrunners reportedly dropped out of their Star Wars movies partly out of fear of the toxic Star Wars fandom. No one wants to deal with that. Christopher McQuarrie continued to Collider on angry Star Wars fans:
At the same time, I feel like the reactions are pretty extreme, and what I noticed that they were not able to separate was their being upset from their choice of how they were expressing it. So you would confront them on the way they were expressing it, and they would defend their right to express being upset. They really couldn’t separate the two things. And that, I think, speaks to a bigger issue. I think that speaks to what we’re seeing on virtually any issue on the internet. People are so busy defending their point of view that they’re not really looking at the way they are defending it. What we’ve done as a society is we’re attacking logical problems with emotional responses.
He makes some good points, and he's not the only one to make them. Since Christopher McQuarrie made his comments over a year ago, and his tweet about Star Wars is no longer live, he may feel differently now. At any rate, he left the door open for Lucasfilm to find him.
Christopher McQuarrie isn't one of those directors who takes a lot of heat, but maybe he's worried that would change if he made a Star Wars film some fans didn't like. Frankly, it probably would. It's not like The Last Jedi haters were the first to lash out. Remember the response to the prequels? Still, what do you think of the idea of him making a Star Wars movie someday?
