Feige In, Weiss & Benioff Out

[Elfdart]

THR

Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have exited their planned Star Wars series over 18 months after Disney and Lucasfilm first announced they were joining.

"We love Star Wars. When George Lucas built it, he built us too," Benioff and Weiss said in a statement. "Getting to talk about Star Wars with him and the current Star Wars team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything. But there are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects. So we are regretfully stepping away."

I don't know if these two items are related, but news that Kevin Feige is going to produce a new Star Wars movie has been followed by news that Benioff and Weiss are pulling out to focus on their $250 million Netflix project. io9 speculated that this might be fallout from a Q&A D&D had in Austin recently, where they admitted that they hustled HBO just to get Game of Thrones picked up. This didn't really strike me as a big deal. To anyone familiar with the antics of a real producer-hustler like the recently deceased Robert Evans Read or watch "The Kid Stays In The Picture", Evans' quasi-autobiography), this seems like baby shit. More likely reasons are the downward spiral GoT took in the last three seasons when D&D ran out of material and lacked the creativity to make up the difference, and the way they seemed eager to ditch GoT for Star Wars and quite frankly either D&D, Lucasfilm or Netflix (or all both) put their foot down and made D&D pick one project.

[Darth Yan]

Pretty much. They had some moments of brilliance (Hardholme was well regarded even by book fans) but it wasn't just running out of material. They also didn't have writer rooms or people calling them out on their dumbass decisions (if someone had put their foot down in HBO Dorne probably wouldn't have been a plot line.) Disney and Netflix would probably force either one of them to have a LOT more oversight over them, and they didn't want that.

[The Romulan Republic]

I approve of these choices.

Good riddance to misogynist hack rubbish, and while I am not a part of the cult of Feige, he's done alright by the MCU- in fact my main concern is that also having him involved in Star Wars while he's being promoted to full control of the MCU will spread his efforts too thin.

[Darth Yan]

I approve of these choices.

Good riddance to misogynist hack rubbish, and while I am not a part of the cult of Feige, he's done alright by the MCU- in fact my main concern is that also having him involved in Star Wars while he's being promoted to full control of the MCU will spread his efforts too thin.

Oh they’ve got issues but Dany going insane was telegraphed from day 1. You fell for the fake image just like outsiders fell for Aung Syun Syuu Kai

[The Romulan Republic]

I approve of these choices.

Good riddance to misogynist hack rubbish, and while I am not a part of the cult of Feige, he's done alright by the MCU- in fact my main concern is that also having him involved in Star Wars while he's being promoted to full control of the MCU will spread his efforts too thin.

Oh they’ve got issues but Dany going insane was telegraphed from day 1. You fell for the fake image just like outsiders fell for Aung Syun Syuu Kai

Not at all. Daenerys had good qualities and bad, and could, in my view at least, plausibly have gone either way at the start- but season seven and early season eight appeared to show her turning a corner, turning her back on seizing the throne at any cost to instead help against the White Walkers. So the ending came as a sudden about-face.

Also, whether it was "telegraphed" does not change the fact that "Woman is unfit for power, goes mad and commits mass murder when her boyfriend dumps her, has to be put down by her boyfriend so a more fit male ruler can take her place" is an extremely misogynistic narrative which plays on the trope that only men are level-headed enough to be trusted to lead.

I'll add that while one can certainly point to aspects of Daenerys's character that make her a questionable ruler, such as her frequent lack of subtlety, stubbourness, and belief in hereditary monarchy, all of those are traits that are easily explicable as products of her upbringing and circumstances, shared by other characters who are not deemed "mad" or evil (and the two should not be conflated), and do not require insanity as an explanation.

I'll also add that most of the common rationals given for the "mad queen" narrative are transparent bullshit:

"Oh, but she wasn't upset enough when the brother who hit and molested and threatened and sold her died- clearly she's mentally ill! What do you mean we're misogynist?" (Yeah, Dumbass and Dipshit actually used this one.)

"Oh but she's a Targaryen, and they all go mad- it was genetically pre-destined! Just ignore all the sane Targaryens, like Jon and the Night's Watch Maester, and the fact that even in-universe the saying is that when a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin. Also ignore that mental illness does not equal mass-murderer."

"Oh, but she brutally kills anyone who opposes her." Yeah, but considering the era she's in, her actions aren't really out of step with what other characters do. Noble Ned Stark, castigated by much of the fandom for being too "honourable"*, personally executes a deserter by beheading in his very first scene, and its seen as a sign of how noble he is. Is beheading a frightened young man a kinder act than burning a slaver or traitor with dragon fire? Everybody Danny killed before she suddenly decided to burn an entire surrendering city she'd spent years seeking to rule for no reason was either an enemy soldier, a slaver, or a criminal.

"But she believes she has a right to rule. How arrogant and entitled!" Well, yeah, but so do most feudal nobles and aristocrats. Its only condemned as "arrogance" and entitlement so loudly in Daenerys. Arguably the system is insane, but I question whether Daenerys is. Also, its hard not to think you have a special heritage when you have fireproof skin and dragons to prove it.

And finally... the show spent years building Danny up as a hero, a liberator, an icon. So if some of us believed that maybe she was what she appeared to be, then are we at fault for that? Hell, I have far less reason to complain than some. I have a dick. But I've read enough responses from fans to know that Daenerys mattered to a lot of women who saw a strong female leader claiming power despite starting out as a literal sex slave**, and the show built that up, played to it, happily courted that audience- and then pulled the rug out from under them at the last moment, as if to say "LOL, you thought you were going to get your strong female hero? Nah, turns out bitches be crazy! White men rule!" That is a cruel bait and switch.

Hell, just read any of Emelia Clarke's statements about how she felt when she got to the end of the series and you'll see why people are so fucking mad about this. The woman who played Daenerys for nearly a third of her life sure as hell didn't think it was "telegraphed".

So yeah, I stand by the statement that Dumbass and Dipshit are misogynists, for this and many other things. That they are also lazy, clumsy hacks for completely reasons that have nothing to do with misogyny is simply the icing on the shit cake. And there is a particularly delicious karma to them leaving the Star Wars gig, since part of the reason season eight sucked dragon dick was almost certainly that they tried to rush through it as fast and half-assedly as possible to get to their Star Wars gig.

Sweet, sweet comeuppance.



*Read: Not a HARD MAN MAKING HARD CHOICES WHILE HARD.

**Because that's exactly what forced marriage is.

[RogueIce]

Jesus Christ can we not relitigate Game of Thrones Season 8 in here?

Honestly, aside from nerds trying to get some measure of satisfaction out of things, this is most likely nothing more sinister than Weiss and Benioff being overextended. As the article said, they were announced for a Star Wars project a year and a half ago, during which they were doing GoT and have since picked up a major Netflix deal. Insofar as any "forced decisions" were made, it's possible they were asked to choose between Star Wars and Netflix, or they just reached a mutual agreement that yep, a SW movie trilogy just wasn't in the cards for them right now.

Go find your revenge satisfaction elsewhere.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I was under the impression that Benioff & Weiss had used the Star Wars offer as leverage to get more money out of the Netflix offer in the first place, because I recall the former being announced before the latter. And given the streaming wars to come it seems unlikely that anybody involved was under any illusions that they would be working for BOTH Netflix and Disney. I doubt it is related to anything specific about B&W, GoT, Feige, or anything like that. Neither Netflix nor Disney would easily countenance B&W simultaneously working for a big rival.

[MKSheppard]

Reminder: GOT S7 and S8 died for this.

[Elfdart]

I wonder how much Fuck You money they walked away with.

[Elfdart]

THR has more:

LINK

When THR exclusively reported last month that Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige, the architect of Disney's multibillion-dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe, will be working with Kennedy on a Star Wars movie, some speculated that the move was an acknowledgement that not all is well in the Star Wars universe. For their part, Disney co-chairmen Alan Horn and Alan Bergman continue to stand by Kennedy. "With the close of the Skywalker Saga, Kathy is pursuing a new era in Star Wars storytelling, and knowing what a die-hard fan Kevin is, it made sense for these two extraordinary producers to work on a Star Wars film together," the studio chiefs said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Benioff and Weiss were also feeling the heat and began having second thoughts about jumping into Star Wars due to what one source described as "toxic fandom."

The creators had built Thrones from the ground up — based on author George R.R. Martin's sprawling novels — and were initially lauded by both critics and fans, who made the show HBO's most watched original series ever. But the divisive six-episode final season that aired in the spring was met with such backlash that the duo backed out of a farewell panel at San Diego Comic-Con in the summer.

To go from Thrones to Star Wars, where fans have bullied actors off social media and taken aim at filmmakers like Johnson? "Who wants to go through that again? Not them," notes another source with knowledge of Benioff and Weiss' thinking. "This was in the 'Life’s Too Short' category."

Whether forces internal or external were in play, Benioff and Weiss wanted out. "It was a hard quit,” says an insider.

At the rate they're going, internet manbabies are going to scare off everyone.

[Darth Yan]

Eh. S8 was rushed and could have been better handled

[The Romulan Republic]

THR has more:

LINK

When THR exclusively reported last month that Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige, the architect of Disney's multibillion-dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe, will be working with Kennedy on a Star Wars movie, some speculated that the move was an acknowledgement that not all is well in the Star Wars universe. For their part, Disney co-chairmen Alan Horn and Alan Bergman continue to stand by Kennedy. "With the close of the Skywalker Saga, Kathy is pursuing a new era in Star Wars storytelling, and knowing what a die-hard fan Kevin is, it made sense for these two extraordinary producers to work on a Star Wars film together," the studio chiefs said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Benioff and Weiss were also feeling the heat and began having second thoughts about jumping into Star Wars due to what one source described as "toxic fandom."

The creators had built Thrones from the ground up — based on author George R.R. Martin's sprawling novels — and were initially lauded by both critics and fans, who made the show HBO's most watched original series ever. But the divisive six-episode final season that aired in the spring was met with such backlash that the duo backed out of a farewell panel at San Diego Comic-Con in the summer.

To go from Thrones to Star Wars, where fans have bullied actors off social media and taken aim at filmmakers like Johnson? "Who wants to go through that again? Not them," notes another source with knowledge of Benioff and Weiss' thinking. "This was in the 'Life’s Too Short' category."

Whether forces internal or external were in play, Benioff and Weiss wanted out. "It was a hard quit,” says an insider.

At the rate they're going, internet manbabies are going to scare off everyone.

Maybe, and I've made that point about the Star Wars fandom's constant attacks on creators for everything from "WAAHHH, Women and minorities exist, WAR ON WHITE MEN!" to "Waahhhh, its not exactly like the OT viewed through rose-tinted glasses, RUINED FOREVER!". But let's just say that the most vitriolic complaints against Benioff and Weiss tend to come from a very different place than the most vitriolic complaints against Rian Johnson or Kelly Tran (obvious individual exceptions notwithstanding). And personally, I find "These guys suck because they're sexist" a more sympathetic motive for complaints than "These guys suck because they're not white men/cast actors who aren't white men".

Also, one of the main complaints against GoT's eight season that doesn't pertain to the misogyny is that it was too rushed (even people who don't think the portrayal of Daenerys is misogynist often complain about how rushed her fall was, for example), and at least part of the reason for it being rushed appears to be that Benioff and Weiss wanted to get Thrones out of the way so they could get to their Star Wars gig. So them leaving Star Wars now feels karmic- that they're not being rewarded for throwing the Thrones finale under the bus.

Plus, you know, we don't want them to fuck Star Wars the way they fucked Thrones.

[MarxII]

I've got to agree that there is quite enough justification for not wanting those two to keep wide of Star Wars without drawing on the bad-faith arguments of the manbaby contingent.

[Vympel]

Some thoughts.

1. The whole Austin film panel twitter thread was a fucking hit job. The audio released after the fact shows that tweet thread was done in naked bad faith and put the worst possible spin on everything Benioff & Weiss said, including simply distorting their words / outright altering what they said and why. Benioff & Weiss are typically self-depreciating and highly complimentary of their crew, which this dipshit distorted beyond all reason. And the flagrant bias was obvious from the tweeter themselves, honestly. It had "salty asshole neckbeard" written all over it, and it's incredible how many people leaped onto them just because they didn't like Season 8.

2. It was reported subsequently that this decision was made months ago, but was only announced now, IIRC.

3. That said, given Season 8 was easily GOT's weakest season, I'd say the franchise probably dodged a bullet regardless. Benioff & Weiss are skilful at adaptation, not original story telling, sorry.