Last year writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods became two of the most sought-after screenwriters in the business after their original horror movie – A QUIET PLACE – was brought to life from director John Krasinski and became a monster hit and critical darling. They even got the attention of the people behind some of the biggest movies on the market, and the duo recently revealed they had a meeting with the folks at Lucasfilm to talk about taking on a STAR WARS or INDIANA JONES project.
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Beck and Woods were speaking with MovieWeb to talk their new movie, HAUNT (which they wrote and directed), when they mentioned how in the wake of A QUIET PLACE’s huge success, they were brought in by Lucasfilm to see which stories in those series they would be interested in telling. According to Woods:
"We went into Lucasfilm in the wake of A Quiet Place and they wanted to talk to us about Indiana Jones and Star Wars. And we're like, 'We wanna talk to you about, what is Star Wars before it was Star Wars?' You guys have a responsibility to start a new franchise. That's where our hearts have always been, just trying to create original ideas."
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In short, they turned Lucasfilm down. After writing an original movie that made $340 million worldwide off a $17 million budget and would eventually go on to secure an Oscar nomination, the duo is still feeling the buzz of creating their own, original stories. A QUIET PLACE is currently getting the sequel treatment, which they did not return to write. Beck added that while they did engage in the conversations about what they would want to see in the respective series, working within an established universe is “just not our DNA.”
"Without giving away too much… it was simply ruminating on if we did an Indiana Jones movie, what would we want to see in Indiana Jones? Or if we did a Star Wars movie, what's that chapter of the whole universe that we would want to see? So it very much was an open canvas talk. It started going down the line a little bit but, again, as Bryan said, it's just not our DNA. We would rather create what the next Indiana Jones could be."
When it comes to INDIANA JONES and STAR WARS, Disney has some lofty plans for the two series. For the former, a fifth movie is currently in development with Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford returning, and with eyes set on a 2021 release date. Then there's STAR WARS, which has a bright future on Disney+ with new series planned for the streaming platform, not to mention THE RISE OF SKYWALKER hitting theaters this December. There's plenty of material to explore, at least when it comes to STAR WARS, but it's understandable that Beck and Woods would want to do their own thing instead. Perhaps it's easy for a writer's voice to get lost in the machine of these big franchises, even if the allure of getting to work with STAR WARS is tempting.