The last in The Last Jedi saga involves Rian Johnson’s original pitch for his sequel to the Star Wars franchise. In an interview with /Film, Johnson revealed his original pitch to Kathleen Kennedy which landed him the gig as Star Wars: The Last Jedi director.
“After Kathy asked me if I’d be interested in it, we had a series of conversations, and basically my pitch was the first movie is like the introduction, the second movie is training,” said Johnson. “And by ‘training,’ I mean we take each of these characters and we really test their mettle. So I said that would be my approach to it, it’s a very character-based approach where we just start with each one of these characters we care about and figure out what the hardest next step is for each of them.”
“So having that trailhead to go from, it was also nice because it gives you a direction as opposed to just having a big cloud of childhood fantasies, of ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to see the Falcon do this or that?’ that you could get lost in, it wasn’t like that…once I actually started doing the work, I found that it felt really comfortable. And then all the childhood fantasy stuff is just fuel for the fire,”
“When I got the job, and especially when it broke on the internet and everyone started talking about it and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I guess I’m actually doing this,’ it was really scary,” Johnson said. “But then, when I sat down to write, it was actually the most fun I’ve ever had writing. I guess maybe because it was a blank page, but I had a starting point [with The Force Awakens].”
The pitch worked as Johnson’s film is the second most successful film in the franchise and has lead to Lucasfilm has given him a new Star Wars trilogy to write and direct.
