Dawn of the Jedi’ Will Work

James Mangold has never shied away from challenges, from a Johnny Cash biopic (Walk the Line) to the intense Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. His career is full of varying choices like these, but his upcoming Star Wars movie might be one of the largest chunks of challenge he’s ever bitten off, and that’s saying something. Along with accomplished showrunner Beau Willimon, Mangold is set to take on Star Wars in a truly unique fashion with Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, a story that takes place a (very, very, very) long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

It’s the fact that the film will take place in that “very, very, very” distant past that appealed to Mangold, who only took this project on because he and Willimon would be able to tackle a time and place that was open for discovery in the franchise. “To me, the really important aspects are the freedom to make something new,” said Mangold in a recent interview with MovieWeb. “Beau and I, in relation to Star Wars, have been working on a script, and we’ll see what happens […] Do we find a way on the page to say something original?“

Original is never easy, but in the universe of Star Wars, where so much of it tends to “rhyme like poetry” to quote George Lucas himself, originality can certainly go against the grain a bit. Mangold feels he has a workaround, though, baked into the concept of Star Wars: The Dawn of the Jedi that will bring him to the creative space he wants to enter. The director told MovieWeb:

“The Star Wars movie would be taking place 25,000 years before any known Star Wars movies takes place. It’s an area and a playground that I’ve always [wanted to explore] and that I was inspired by as a teenager. I’m not that interested in being handcuffed by so much lore at this point that it’s almost immovable, and you can’t please anybody.”

James Mangold is Close to a Big Milestone on his ‘Star Wars’ Movie

James Mangold and co-writer Beau Willimon are still working on their planned ‘Star Wars’ movie.

‘Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi’ Will Be All About “The Feels”

When discussing his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, which stars an excellent Timothée Chalamet in the lead role, Mangold mentioned how he’s identified with Dylan’s own constant path of self-discovery. “In my own modest way, I do identify with it,” says Mangold, telling MovieWeb:

“My entire career, I have really enjoyed changing what I’m doing. I don’t think I change myself, and I don’t think Bob reinvents his core soul, but I like to throw myself into things that people don’t expect or that I don’t expect, more importantly, in terms of surprising myself or challenging myself.”

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Edward Norton Talks Bob Dylan & Playing Pete Seeger in ‘A Complete Unknown’

Edward Norton speaks to us about his new film ‘A Complete Unknown,’ where he plays folk musician Pete Seeger opposite Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.

A Star Wars feature film certainly qualifies. Mangold has scaled similar cinematic mountains through his career, including arguably the single best film with an X-Men character, Logan. He also didn’t shy away from the massive challenge of bringing Harrison Ford’s iconic Indiana Jones back to action in Dial of Destiny. Sometimes Mangold’s boldness pays off at the box office. Sometimes it doesn’t. There’s usually one way of improving the odds, though, something that Mangold will apply to his Star Wars film. He tells MovieWeb:

“Success is never guaranteed, but the reality is that the way to get most people to agree is to move them; to somehow find the humanity in a situation. Whether it’s a mega-franchise or a smaller dramatic movie, whatever they are, usually the movies you remember are the ones that move you. The ones that leave you cold, even if they’re clever, even if they’re spectacular, even if they’re dazzling, somehow just become replaced by the next dazzling object a year later. It’s the feelings, it’s “the feels,” right? That truly defines how we feel about these movies and whether we care to visit them again.”

When we get Mangold and Willimon’s Dawn of the Jedi is anyone’s guess. Keep in mind, many a Star Wars project has been shelved. If and when we do get it, we can rest assured that James Mangold will not play it safe, taking risks that can create the kind of lasting power audiences really love most of all. In the meantime, A Complete Unknown is in theaters now.