After the success of Paddington 2, Disney offered Simon Farnaby and Paul King the opportunity to write a Star Wars film that would be directed by King but written by the pair, unfortunately that idea did not fly for Star Wars but is being reworked into a sci-fi film.
“So we got distracted by that for a while,” he says, adding that their idea was based around a robot and didn’t involve any of the key “Star Wars” characters, something he acknowledges might have played a part in it not working out (although the concept is being reworked into something else). “They were like, we really need it to be a ‘Star Wars’ movie, which is probably why it didn’t get turned into a ‘Star Wars’ movie!” he says with a chuckle. “But we never really nailed it.”
While their shot at “Star Wars” may have misfired, King and Farnaby’s “unspecified robot” idea wasn’t dismissed by Disney. “They basically said, it’s not right for ‘Star Wars,’ but do you want to rework it as a sci-fi film?” he says. “So we’re working on that now.”
Farnaby appeared as a Rebel pilot in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Read the interview in full here.
