Boba Fett was once supposed to have his own standalone Star Wars movie, and the film’s journey from announcement to cancelation to its current state had quite a few bumps, twists, and turns. There have been many canceled Star Wars movies over the years, and one of the most disappointing was Boba Fett’s. As one of the best bounty hunters in Star Wars, Boba Fett gained a legendary status among fans, despite only appearing in a few minutes of the original trilogy. He seemed like the perfect character to explore in a Star Wars movie, but the plans never came to fruition.

Now, Boba Fett’s movie has been canceled and will likely never be made. It did, however, have a very unpredictable and interesting road to that ultimate fate. The film went through two directors and years of behind the scenes changes and shifts. Despite the various problems the Boba Fett film faced, it somehow managed to survive long enough to become a show instead of a movie, seven years after it was originally announced. This is the complicated story of how the Boba Fett movie went from a planned anthology film into a gritty Spaghetti Western and ultimately became a spinoff show of another Star Wars show.

Boba Fett Would’ve Been Star Wars’ Second Anthology Film

Boba Fett’s Movie Would Have Released Between Rogue One & Solo

After Disney acquired Lucasfilm and Star Wars in 2012, the company announced several new movies. Disney first began work on the seventh installment in the Skywalker saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In 2014, before The Force Awakens‘ release, Lucasfilm announced additional plans to create two anthology films.

Though untitled at the time of the announcement, the first film would later become Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and Gareth Edwards was attached as the movie’s director. The other was intended to be a Boba Fett spinoff movie directed by Josh Trank (via The Hollywood Reporter), the director of Chronicle and Fantastic Four (2015). Rogue One was released exactly as planned on December 16, 2016, but the Boba Fett movie didn’t follow suit.

• 

  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

  12+

  Set in the weeks leading up to Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story provides additional context for the Rebellion’s plan to destroy the Death Star. Rogue One follows Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) as she enlists the help of Rebel Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) to locate her father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), after the Empire kidnaps him. 

  Director

  Gareth Edwards

  Release Date

  
  December 13, 2016
  

  Cast

  Felicity Jones
  , Diego Luna
  , Ben Mendelsohn
  , Donnie Yen
  , Mads Mikkelsen
  , Alan Tudyk
  , Jiang Wen
  , Forest Whitaker

  Budget

  $200–265 million

• 

  Solo: A Star Wars Story

  pg-13

  Solo: A Star Wars Story is a spin-off of the Star Wars franchise that focuses on the early years of Han Solo, with Alden Ehrenreich replacing Harrison Ford as the iconic smuggler. The movie explores how Han met Chewbacca, acquired the Millennium Falcon, and became the roguish smuggler fans know and love. Donald Glover brings back Lando Calrissian, Woody Harrelson plays Tobias Beckett, Emilia Clarke portrays Qi’ra, and Paul Bettany embodies the crime lord Dryden Vos.

  Director

  Ron Howard

  Release Date

  
  May 10, 2018
  

  Cast

  Alden Ehrenreich
  , Emilia Clarke
  , Donald Glover
  , Woody Harrelson
  , Phoebe Waller-Bridge
  , Thandiwe Newton

  Budget

  $275–300 million

The Boba Fett movie was supposed to be the second of Star Wars‘ anthology films, but that honor went instead to Solo: A Star Wars Story. Han Solo’s origin story had been planned for a long time, but because of Solo‘s director troubles and other problems with development, Boba Fett was supposed to get his movie first. Instead, Trank left the project in 2015, and the plans to bring Boba Fett to the screen were mostly abandoned for the next several years.

Why Josh Trank Left Star Wars’ Boba Fett Movie

Lucasfilm Lost Confidence In Trank After Fantastic Four’s Failure

When the Boba Fett movie was announced and Josh Trank was chosen to direct it, he was a rising director in Hollywood. His first feature film as a director, Chronicle, was a smash hit, and made over $120 million at the worldwide box office against a budget of just $12 million (via Box Office Mojo). That massive success caused 20th Century Fox to hire him to direct the 2015 reboot of Fantastic Four, which is where his troubles began. Fantastic Four had an infamously difficult development, and according to IGN, word of Trank’s troubles reached Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.

Kennedy reportedly lost faith in Trank’s abilities as a director, and her worries were proven right when Fantastic Four made it onto the list of comic book movies that lost the most money. Trank and Kennedy then reportedly reached a mutual agreement that he should begin to step away from the Boba Fett film. Trank was absent from Star Wars Celebration 2015 (via Variety), despite having plans to reveal details of his upcoming film. Just days later, Trank issued a statement saying he had quit the project. However, Trank told IGN in 2020 that he quit because he knew he would be fired if he didn’t.

James Mangold Planned An R-Rated Spaghetti Western Boba Fett Movie

Mangold’s Take On Boba Would Have Kept Him As A Gritty Space Cowboy

The Boba Fett movie experienced a major setback when Trank departed from the project, but it wasn’t done just yet. In 2018, Lucasfilm announced that director James Mangold would be taking over and writing a new script for Boba Fett (via THR). While Mangold’s version of the film would never be finished, there are a few details about what he had planned for the bounty hunter.

Mangold originally planned for the Boba Fett movie to be rated R, or in his words, “borderline rated-R.” There aren’t many details as to why Mangold thought it would be rated that way, but he likely would have leaned into the infamous bounty hunter side of Boba’s character, which would have brought a very mature tone with it. Mangold also said he wanted it to be essentially a Spaghetti Western where Boba would be on a single planet for the entire duration. That decision also would have made it a standalone film that didn’t connect to anything else in Star Wars.

Why Star Wars’ Boba Fett Movie Was Canceled

Boba Fett’s Movie Was Canceled Because Of Solo, It’s Own Dark Tone, & The Mandalorian

Ultimately, after years of failed plans and behind the scenes changes, the Boba Fett movie was canceled in 2018 (via Collider). The chief reason for its cancelation wasn’t any of the problems with its development, though, but rather another movie: Solo. After Solo became Star Wars‘ first box office bomb – it holds the second-lowest rank on the list of Star Wars movies by box office earnings – Lucasfilm put a hold on anthology spinoff films (via Collider).

Solo effectively killed Star Wars spinoff movies, which included Boba Fett’s movie, but that wasn’t the only reason for its cancelation. Mangold told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he believed his darker tone and “borderline rated-R” plan for the movie likely scared Lucasfilm and didn’t fit with the company’s overall plan for the franchise. He said that “[Lucasfilm] probably would never be able to embrace Baby Yoda if I had made that. It didn’t really belong in the world I was kind of envisioning.”

Mangold’s comments about Baby Yoda, now known to be Grogu, also highlights another cause of the Boba Fett movie’s cancelation. In 2018, Lucasfilm was already developing The Mandalorian. The show created the character of Din Djarin, who all but replaced Boba Fett as the franchise’s most famous helmeted bounty hunter. The Mandalorian has since been one of Star Wars‘ most successful TV shows, and it became so popular Lucasfilm even announced it would be getting a movie, The Mandalorian & Grogu.

While The Mandalorian & Grogu eventually replaced the Boba Fett film, the original Mandalorian bounty hunter wasn’t completely forgotten. Boba appeared in The Mandalorian season 2, and at the end of 2020, Lucasfilm announced Boba would get his own spinoff show, The Book of Boba Fett. That show was as close to a Boba Fett movie as fans will likely ever see, but it also deviated significantly from Mangold’s plan for the film. Instead of being a gritty story about the meanest bounty hunter in the galaxy, The Book of Boba Fett gave Boba a redemption story and established him as a benevolent crime lord on Tatooine.

Unfortunately, several things went wrong with The Book of Boba Fett, and it failed to live up to many viewers’ expectations of the legendary bounty hunter. It also struggled to find success both critically – it’s the lowest-rated Disney Star Wars show on Rotten Tomatoes – and with fans. Considering the challenging road it took to get to screens in the first place, that lukewarm reception makes sense. The Book of Boba Fett may not be the perfect show, but it’s likely as close as Star Wars will ever get to a Boba Fett movie, and it finally gave the mythical Mandalorian bounty hunter his time to shine.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Box Office Mojo, IGN, Variety, Collider, Happy Sad Confused, Rotten Tomatoes