Star Wars: Director Matthew Vaughn Interested in Total Reboot of Franchise, “It Needs an Epic New Film”

The Star Wars franchise has delivered big-screen adventures for more than four decades, with each new film expanding on the original lore from the debut 1977 film. Filmmaker Matthew Vaughn recently recalled how, for him to be interested in getting involved in the galaxy far, far away, the real prospect of such an opportunity would be to reboot the original movie, igniting interest in new generations with a contemporary cinematic sensibility. He also noted how, as long as the movies are good, older fans would be on board with such a reboot, as the strengths of the series have always centered around those original characters.

“For me, doing a Star Wars movie is to play with the characters that I love. So if they said to me, ‘Do you wanna reboot Star Wars and actually have Luke Skywalker, [Han] Solo, and Vader, and you do your own version of it?’ everyone would say you’re an idiot to try, but that would excite me,” Vaughn revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “That’d be fun, why not? Bond … you ask me who is going to play the next Wolverine, why are these characters so hallowed that, from 1977, you can’t redo it for a new audience? Star Wars is the Skywalker family. And that’s where, I think, they’ve gone wrong because they’ve forgotten … And they’ve done brilliantly in the TV [world], but it needs an epic new film and that’s what I would do.”

Vaughn previously rebooted a franchise with his X-Men: First Class, though with that film taking place many years before the version of beloved characters we met in the original X-Men films, audiences weren’t quite as judgmental about an entire reboot. The success of that film even allowed the older and younger versions of characters to collide in X-Men: Days of Future Past. One potential snag in Vaughn’s outlook, however, was that Solo: A Star Wars Story attempted to find new performers to play iconic characters, with that film being a box-office disappointment.

Still, Vaughn isn’t intimidated by the potential fan reactions to a reboot.

“Everyone’s going to go batsh-t crazy,`but let’s bring it on,” Vaughn joked. “Because if you want a new generation, make the movie for them. The old generation can, if you make it well enough that they go, ‘Okay, I’m enjoying it.’”

While there are multiple announced Star Wars movies on the way, it’s currently unknown which adventure will be the next to land on the big screen.

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Star Wars franchise.

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