This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Remembering Carl Weathers

Welcome back to 'This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away', in what is likely going to be our saddest edition yet. It'd been a slow news week and though I initially struggled with finding a topic for today's edition, I finally settled on discussing recent reports surrounding streaming data from Nielsen. But then, the news about Carl Weathers hit on Friday and I had to change course.



Before we get to all of that, some plugs for other stuff I was working on this week. It's been a busy week at MovieNewsNet.com, where I reviewed three films from last week's Sundance online edition: breakout hit A Real Pain, this year's winner In the Summers, and Hulu's Suncoast. I was also able to see the new Daisy Ridley movie Sometimes I Think About Dying, which was pretty good! (It's slowly expanding to more and more theaters in the US.) Last but not least, I was finally able to complete my top 24 most anticipated movies of the year!



Finally, a Star Wars News Net YouTube programming note. I stopped by this Thursday's edition of SWNN Live! to chat about my ten predictions for Star Wars in 2024. This wasn't the only YouTube show we had this week, as Tyler and Brian launched The Timeline Show on Tuesday (though expect to see it on Mondays from now on). We have also launched a portal on Spotify and other podcast apps, so you can check out our latest episodes in audio-only form!


<h2>Three Things That May Have Flown Casual</h2>

• Toy news: It was a slow week for everyone except for Star Wars toy manufacturers. LEGO announced 'new' figures on Monday to celebrate 25 years of marriage with Lucasfilm. Hasbro announced a new 4-inch line with more 'new' figures, and Hot Toys revealed their Return of the Jedi Han Solo 1/6 figure.
• Speaking of original trilogy Han... Harrison Ford's 1976 script of A New Hope will be sold at an upcoming auction. The pages were left behind by the actor at the London residence he rented for a couple months that summer. Check out here for more details. Can you imagine what would happen today if someone left a script unattended at a hotel?
• In Ahsoka news... Wes Chatham, the man behind the golden Enoch mask, spoke about his experience on the set of the Disney Plus series. From what I've seen, it's the first interview he's given about the show, and though Star Wars fans may not necessarily recognize him in a coffee shop, he was still a big part of the show during those last couple of episodes. In other Ahsoka news, the first season of the Disney Plus series is getting a Marvel comics adaptation.

<h2>This Week, In Star Wars-Adjacent News...</h2>


Allow me, on this slow week in news, to launch a new segment in which I'll bring up some entertainment headlines that don't contain the words Star Wars but that are of certain relevance to the state of the franchise, which was one of the original goals of this weekly series of articles. Depending on the week, this might get bumped into the main discussion topic.



This week, it's mostly centered on Taika Waititi's Star Wars movie, a project that has me fascinated at this point. What is going on with it? I know they're knee-deep into the script, yet Waititi keeps putting it away as his night job. We've known for a few months that Waititi would be focused on Klara and the Sun next, and following news that Jenna Ortega would be leading that movie, I'd speculated that 3000 Pictures, which produces the project, would have it go into production before Ortega went on to film Wednesday season 2 for Netflix.



Well, Deadline reported this week that Amy Adams is set to join Ortega in a key supporting role, but what's more important, in their story they confirmed my educated guess: production should get underway within weeks. Doing some quick math, this means Waititi should be wrapped before the summer, so if everything goes the right way, he could be focused on Star Wars as soon as this fall. (I assume Klara and the Sun would need a few months of visual effects work.) In a Business Insider interview last fall, he'd said that his next few years would be dedicated to Klara and the Sun, Star Wars, and an adaptation of Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Incal. I'd like to believe that Star Wars will be next.







Then there's the fact that Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who was once announced to be co-writing the movie with Waititi, is apparently scripting Denis Villeneuve's Cleopatra. I've suspected Wilson-Cairns is off the movie for a while, but I think this is the final nail in that coffin. Kathleen Kennedy said last year that Waititi likes to write by himself, though there were some rumblings a few months ago that he may have enlisted additional scribes.



One final, small rant before we move on from this segment. Donald Glover and Maya Erskine's Mr. &amp; Mrs. Smith series for Prime Video dropped on the service on Friday. Glover has been at the center of a rather limited press tour for around a week, during which reporters found time to ask him about Spider-Man and the Community movie, but NO ONE has asked him about Lando? Seriously?! What is going on here? Are reporters on these press junkets not aware of the news about the Lando movie, are they not interested, or have they been asked not to ask about it? Something smells wrong here, and I'm starting to feel like it's only a matter of time before we find out this movie is no longer happening (perhaps as part of the post-strike readjustments that greenlit The Mandalorian &amp; Grogu)



Finally, congratulations to Ludwig Göransson for winning his second Grammy for scoring Oppenheimer. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor composers Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab also won! We'll be covering the news tomorrow.







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<h2>Remembering Carl Weathers</h2>


I was kind of distracted on Friday when my phone started buzzing. Our SWNN news chat started to explode, though it took me completely off guard when I saw the notification. Before unlocking my phone to see what it was all about, I was able to read the words 'Carl Weathers', and I immediately thought: So I guess Carl Weathers just confirmed on one of these interviews where he says a lot more than he's supposed to out of excitement that he's a part of The Mandalorian &amp; Grogu...?



I was not prepared for the truth. Variety had picked up on the announcement from the family that Carl Weathers had unexpectedly passed away on Thursday at the age of 76. The cause of death hasn't been disclosed, as far as I know, but honestly, it's not really relevant. Now it's the time for mourning and remembrance. Messages from all over the Star Wars family started to pour in, and it didn't take long to notice how much the larger-than-life personality had impacted everyone around him. From showrunner Jon Favreau to star Pedro Pascal to Katee Sackhoff, and so on. Ahmed Best's message was a particularly heartfelt one. Even Gina Carano buried the axe and shared her personal experience with the man.



I must admit I wouldn't have expected to be as emotional about this one. Weathers had low-key become one of those comforting presences in The Mandalorian, a character you didn't know you missed as much as you did until he showed up again. But more than that, I always loved seeing Carl Weathers off-screen, radiating excitement about his work and finding a second life in Hollywood thanks to Jon Favreau. I thought of the countless times I scrolled through Twitter and found Weathers' interaction with a random fan, always positive and reassuring, but never condescending.



LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 07: Giancarlo Esposito, Katee Sackhoff, and Carl Weathers onstage during the studio panel for The Mandalorian at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)



And most importantly, I thought of the wonderful time he had directing Star Wars. He helmed a great episode in season 2, and another episode in season 3 I admittedly didn't enjoy quite as much -- yet certainly one that sticks out because of the memorable action sequence he was able to put together in collaboration with Ahmed Best. He loved directing, you could tell from behind-the-scenes interviews he'd done. Remember when he revealed the production start for The Mandalorian season 3 back in September 2021 because he was over the moon about going back to set, as an actor but also as a director? I certainly did on Friday.



I don't think I've ever been in the same room as him, yet I have this strange feeling that I can tell who he was: He was the guy to always see the glass half full. He loved to work, but most importantly, he loved his coworkers. And I think that applied to everything he did. It's obvious he touched so many lives around him, and he will be remembered for a long time. I'm just sad we won't be able to see his enthusiasm light up any more rooms.



#BePeace



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