'Harry Potter' playwright's next trick: rewriting a Star Wars movie
Jack Thorne's broomstick is about to enter hyperspace.
Thorne, a veteran scribe most famous for working with J.K. Rowling on the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, has been tapped to write the second draft of the untitled Star Wars Episode IX, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Director Colin Trevorrow co-wrote the first draft of Episode IX, which follows on from Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi (Episode VIII in the Skywalker Saga.)
We've reached out to Lucasfilm to confirm the news. While there's no official word, Johnson offered a corroborating tweet when he corrected just one minor detail of the THR story.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Trevorrow was the subject of concern from many Star Wars fans after his indie movie Book of Henry was a critical and commercial flop; some have criticized his treatment of female characters in particular.
He remains the director of record; however, Lucasfilm bringing in a new writer would suggest the powers that be at Star Wars central are not 100% happy with Trevorrow's script. Previous saga directors Johnson and J.J. Abrams both saw their versions of the story survive in the shooting script. (Abrams co-wrote his version with veteran Star Wars writer Lawrence Kasdan).
Although Thorne has no prior experience with the space part of the Star Wars genre -- which is technically known as space fantasy -- he does have plenty of fantasy writing under his belt. Apart from Cursed Child, he's also been hard at work on a BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
"Jack is a writer of formidable energy and range," Pullman told the BBC last year. "I'm certain he'll do a superb job."
A track record of working with beloved characters from famously controlling authors who sweat the details? That should serve Thorne well in the Star Wars universe.
Production on Episode IX is expected to start in January 2018, and the movie is supposed to hit our screens on May 24, 2019, a year after the also-untitled Han Solo film.
Topics Harry Potter Star Wars
Chris is a veteran tech, entertainment and culture journalist, author of 'How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,' and co-host of the Doctor Who podcast 'Pull to Open.' Hailing from the U.K., Chris got his start as a sub editor on national newspapers. He moved to the U.S. in 1996, and became senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, and West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a long-time volunteer at 826 Valencia, the nationwide after-school program co-founded by author Dave Eggers. His book on the history of Star Wars is an international bestseller and has been translated into 11 languages.
