There have now been nine live-action Star Wars movies, with at least five more confirmed on the horizon, but the franchise hasn’t had a female director yet. Hopefully, that’ll change as Lucasfilm continues making Star Wars movies, but a new report suggests there’s a serious contender: The Handmaid’s Tale director Reed Morano.
Morano, who directed the first three episodes of Hulu’s acclaimed adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s classic book, recently met with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, according to The Hollywood Reporter In the interview, the 40-year-old director explains that Kennedy, who is essentially the boss of all thins Star Wars, really liked her work on Handmaid’s Tale and called her in for a 2-and-a-half hour meeting.
“I guess she was watching with her daughter and then called people and was like, ‘Who’s this Reed person?’” Morano told THR. “[Kennedy’s] amazing. We’re talking about adventure movies, and I’m not even remembering that she produced Goonies. Any movie that I put my finger on that I loved when I was growing up was a movie that she produced. Anyway, it was a great meeting. Obviously, I can’t say anything about what else we were talking about.”
Morano can’t say anything else about what she and Kennedy were talking about, but we can speculate. None of the upcoming Star Wars movies we officially know are on the docket are in need of a director. Ron Howard’s directing Solo, J. J. Abrams is coming back to helm Episode IX, and Last Jedi director Rian Johnson’s got a whole new trilogy to himself. So, if Morano is going to direct a Star Wars movie, it would probably be something we don’t know anything about, unless she’s attached to the rumored Obi-Wan movie, which seems unlikely.
Jyn Erso.
Morano hasn’t directed a blockbuster before, but then again, neither had Johnson. In addition to Handmaid’s Tale, she directed the indie films Frozen River, The Skeleton Twins, Kill Your Darlings, and the new post-apocalyptic drama premiering at Sundance I Think We’re Alone Now, which stars Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning. A Star Wars movie would certainly be a much bigger project than anything she’s tackled before, but she has the credentials, and Star Wars could always use a fresh voice.
Presumably, this rumor is giving whoever made that sexist, “no-women” edit of The Last Jedi an aneurysm. If only for that reason, let’s hope something comes of it.
