Matthew Vaughn, the director known for Kingsman and X-Men: First Class, shared his candid thoughts on the current state of major Hollywood franchises, including Star Wars, on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. He highlighted how commerce has overtaken creativity in the film industry. Specifically, for the Star Wars franchise, he believes it has moved in the wrong direction.
Vaughn stated:
“The studios, it’s like any artistic form. The music business, movies, fashion… the financing and the commerce has taken over the creative,” Vaughn said. “That always means eventually for short-term gains you do well, but long term you kill everything.”
Regarding “Star Wars”, when asked if he’d jump at the opportunity to work on a project these days he commented:
“Now, not so much. For me, doing a ‘Star Wars’ movie is to play with the characters I love. If they said to me they’d reboot ‘Star Wars’ and actually have Luke Skywalker, Solo and Vader and do your version of it. Everyone would say you’re an idiot to try, but that would excite me.”
He also questioned the reluctance to reboot the franchise:
“Why are the [‘Star Wars’] characters so hallowed that from 1977 you can’t re-do it for a new audience?”
And emphasized the essence of the series:
“‘Star Wars’ is the Skywalker family and that’s where I think they’ve gone wrong. They’ve forgot. They’ve done brilliantly in TV but it needs an epic new film. That’s what I would do [i.e. reboot Luke]. Everyone is going to go batshit crazy but let’s bring it on. If you want a new generation, make the movie for them. The old generation, hopefully you make it well enough that they enjoy it.”
You can watch the full exchange below:
Nick and I will talk more about Giancarlo’s interview on next week’s episode of the SWTS, so don’t forget to tune into the Star Wars Time Show on a weekly basis via our podcast platforms or via YouTube if you prefer the livestream angle.
