The irony of ironies! Filmmaker Louis Leterrier was on the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, doing a Watchalong for his Marvel film, “The Incredible Hulk.” In a casual conversation that ranged from all of Leterrier’s films to his work on the semi-controversial ‘Hulk’ movie—at least infamous for the very public way it parted ways with its star Edward Norton— Leterrier and HSC host Josh Horowitz covered a litany of topics.
One of them, a favorite of HSC’s was “Star Wars.” Did Leterrier ever have a dream “Star Wars” project? Yes, indeed his did, he pitched it to Lucasfilm and they said no thank you, but it’s a delicious irony in a way, given what they chose to do years later.
“Any person who is, man, woman, whatever, French, American, Asian in their 40s or 50s who says they are making movies for any reason than trying to make a ‘Star Wars’ movie is lying,” he said, making an opening statement about what “Star Wars” means to him, noting that he even incorporated some homages in the last “Fast And Furious” film he directed. “We all are trying, in a way, to make a ‘Star Wars’ movie.”
“Yeah, I had [an idea] a long time ago when I came to them and pitched,” he explained, starting his story. “I pitched, ‘We should do a ‘Star Wars’ TV show conceived as a ‘Lone Wolf And Cub.’”
This, of course, raised the eyebrows of the HSC host and anyone reading this as most readers will, that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s “The Mandalorian” TV series which was based on “Lone Wolf And Cub” dynamic (“Lone Wolf And Cub” being a Japanese manga series published in 1970, various movies were adapted from the series).
“And they said, ‘Nah, we don’t know if it’s a great idea,’” he remembered. We’ll come back to you.”
Quelle concidence? The host in some disbelief asked, really? Was it a Mandalorian-based idea, and Leterrier was quick to admit that it wasn’t and they didn’t really have much to do with one another.
“No, I wanted to do the missing part of, basically, before ‘New Hope’ where Obi-Wan takes Luke [Skywalker], I wanted to do that, but I was also very interested in the Boba Fett movie,” he laughed, noting the further irony of his interests.
“That’s ok, I did other things,” he added.
The host suggested that Leterrier probably was shocked when he heard “The Mandalorian” idea and announcement, but it sounds like it was way later, way after the fact, and he has zero issues with any notions of plagiarism or copycat-ism. “It’s all good,” he said, suggesting he’s way over it. “It’s all part of the thing and frankly, I had this idea because it was a low-hanging fruit, I think it was so obvious, the characters are so iconic. Didn’t go the way I wanted,” he chuckled.
Now, you’re probably asking yourself, how does one do a “Lone Wolf and Cub” story with Luke and Obi-Wan that’s pre “A New Hope,” does he mean some kind of adventure where a very young Luke Skywalker palled around with Obi-Wan around the time of the… “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series (Skywalker is said to be around 9 years old at that point). And well, of course, this was ages ago and the timeline or cannon wasn’t worked out back then, but it does feel doubtful that Lucasfilm would have ever agreed to that storyline regardless given the events of ‘A New Hope,’ where an 18 year-old Luke Skywalker barely knows Kenobi.
Anyhow, shoulda woulda, coulda, check out the chat below.