Mike Flanagan has made himself one of the foremost directors in horror since he made his first movie, Makebelieve as a student in 2000. Having dipped into the work of Stephen King with Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, and brought The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor to Netflix, his latest series Midnight Mass is also proving to be a huge hit this Halloween. While he is already in post-production on his next collaboration with Netflix, the horror-mystery series The Midnight Club, Flanagan revealed in a post on Twitter that he would love to bring the horror genre to the world of Star Wars.
Thanks to being awakened by an earthquake, Mike Flanagan was stirred into thinking of his next dream project. He wrote, “Got woken up by the earthquake this morning, sat there for a few minutes just thinking “I’d really love to make a horror movie in the STAR WARS universe…”
There have already been a number of steps made towards a horror infused branch of the Star Wars world, with a number of spin-off books such as Death Troopers, Red Harvest and the Galaxy of Fear series delving into a darker universe. On screen, there are already a few horror elements in some of the Star Wars movies, such as the Rancor first seen in Return of the Jedi, and various other alien beasts spread throughout the saga. Then of course just this month, LEGO Star Wars have brought a fun kind of horror in Terrifying Tales this Halloween. In the past, Disney have always been a little edgy about bringing darker elements into their big family franchises. However, we have seen a number of gruesome moments creeping into the stories from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and have been promised the MCU’s first horror movie with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, so perhaps this could be the perfect time for Flanagan to pitch his idea.
It seems that he may have some company when it comes this particular path, as Star Wars: Battlefront writer Mitch Dyer was quick to respond to the director’s tweet, commenting, “I’ve wanted one of those for a decade. Please!” It seems that many fans are also on board with the idea, with Disney being tagged in many responses to the concept. And we all know what happens when fan power takes over. Well, okay, usually nothing at all happens, but we can live in hope that this is a “#releasethesnyderverse” moment.
Just like the Marvel franchise, Star Wars is always big business for Disney, with a whole slate of projects currently in varying stages of development. As a brief overview, The Book of Boba Fett arrives in December, giving the fan-favorite bounty hunter his own series. Andor is a prequel series that lead up to the events of Star Wars: Rogue One and arrives in 2022 along with the highly anticipated return of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Christensen is also said to be making an appearance as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the live action Ahsoka series, which will see Rosario Dawson reprising her role from Chapter 13 of The Mandalorian, which of course has its own third season heading to Disney+. In addition to this are Rogue Squadron, Rangers of The New Republic, The Acolyte, Lando and numerous untitled projects said to be coming from the likes of Taika Waititi, Kevin Feige and Rian Johnson.
Whether Mike Flanagan can succeed in having his horror entry added to the list is something that we can only wait and see, but the idea certainly falls into the category of being a project we never knew we really needed. The question now is whether the internet can manage to work its magic and make it happen.
Midnight Mass is currently streaming on Netflix, while the entire Star Wars saga so far can be found on Disney+. This news originated at Collider.
