Star Wars: Boba Fett Movie Reportedly “Dead”

While the titular Mandalorian in Jon Favreau’s upcoming Disney Play series The Mandalorian is not actually Boba Fett, that series was apparently the death knell for the beloved bounty hunter’s long-rumored solo movie.

Erick Weber, a critic attending a special screening of Black Panther with a number of highly-placed Disney creatives, tweeted that he had asked Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy about Boba Fett and been told that, at least for now, Lucasfilm’s focus is on Star Wars Episode IX, The Mandalorian, and Rian Johnson’s forthcoming trilogy.

The road to production had been somewhat fraught for Boba Fett, and some fans assumed it was dead after the box office disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story earlier this year, with rumors circulating that Lucasfilm and Disney were holding off on any firm decisions regarding Star Wars Story standalone movies until after Episode IX was completed.

The original plan was for Boba Fett to have been this year’s stand-alone Star Wars Story, but when writer/director Josh Trank was let prior to the film’s official announcement, Disney instead pushed ahead with Solo. Given that Solo had its own director problems, it seems in hindsight that this entire process has been a bit painful for the studio.

In any event, more recent rumors had Logan‘s James Mangold writing and directing the film, and while those came from very reliable sources, it seems the project is dead now that The Mandalorian will be covering much of the same ground that any Boba Fett project would.

The Mandalorian will be the first live-action TV project Disney has undertaken for Star Wars, in spite of years of rumors that various such projects were in development.

Boba Fett originally appeared in a few scenes in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi before comically dying in Jedi. Later, he was inserted into A New Hope when the Special Edition came around, and then his father Jango was a major part of the prequel trilogy. Boba is a clone of Jango, and was essentially bred to kill, giving him a backstory that justifies his reputation — even if his Sarlacc Pit death is still a bit on the pathetic side.

Star Wars: Episode IX premieres in theaters in December 2019. There’s no word yet on when to expect The Mandalorian to premiere on Disney’s streaming service.