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Zack Snyder Says His Kurosawa-Inspired Star Wars Film Is Being Worked Into Standalone Film

May 27, 2021 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Zack Snyder Kurosawa

Zack Snyder still has plans for his once-rumored Star Wars movie inspired by Akira Kurosawa, but it will be its own thing now. It was reported way back in January of 2013 that Snyder was developing a film in the franchise that was inspired by and loosely based on Kurosawa’s iconic 1954 film Seven Samurai, which famously inspired George Lucas in crafting the original Star Wars. Obviously that movie never came to pass, but Snyder said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast recently that he’s working it into a non-Star Wars film.

“We [Snyder & Lucasfilm] talked about it, but it never [happened],” Snyder said (per IndieWire). “I’ve been working on it away from the Star Wars universe, on my own, as a sci-fi thing … It’s still a sci-fi thing. It’s the same story. Now, I’m just going to let Star Wars be Star Wars.

Snyder went on to say that the film would have had no overlap with the other films in the Star Wars franchise in terms of characters, noting, “It was me saying, ‘Give me the keys and let me take it for a spin.’”

As to his planned film, Snyder was not certain it would happen but seemed optimistic. He noted, “The 11-year-old me still wants to make that, and now, I know how to. So, maybe we’ll see that someday.”

Snyder has been busy in 2021, releasing both Zack Snyder’s Justice League on HBO Max and Army of the Dead on Netflix. He also has the Army of the Dead prequel Army of Thieves, which he co-wrote, releasing later this year focusing on Matthias Schweighöfer’s Ludwig Dieter.