The Star Wars Movie That Was Almost Just Kick-Ass 3
When the Star Wars sequel trilogies were ramping up, all kinds of names were being thrown out there for both directing the flicks and possible starring roles. It makes sense; this was a generational event, stepping back into a galaxy far, far away for the first time in more than a decade.
And with that came a bunch of different ideas from different sources about how the next set of movies could go. J.J. Abrams emerged early as a name attached to Episode VII, but remember, he was still (kind of) doing Star Trek. So there were Plan B’s out there in case.
Plus, where the stars were concerned, there were some early inklings that LucasFilm and Disney were going with a female to take the Star Wars reigns.
According to /Film at the time, Lucasfilm met with Matthew Vaughn for the Star Wars: Episode VII job. Vaughn pitched Lucasfilm his story and ideas for the new Star Wars movie, which featured a female protagonist who would’ve been played by Chloë Grace Moretz.
Matthew Vaughn had previously worked with Moretz on the movie Kick-Ass in 2010 and thought she would be a good fit for the Star Wars universe. He was also set to release Kick-Ass 2 in August of that year, having wrapped filming on that flick in the November prior (he was a producer for that film after directing the first movie). So, of course, Chloë Grace Moretz was front of mind if there was going to be a female Star Wars lead.
It’s unclear if Matthew Vaughn’s pitch cost the British director the Star Wars job, but it appears Steven Spielberg pushed Kathleen Kennedy and George Lucas not to give up on their “Plan A” with J.J. Abrams. Matthew Vaughn was always considered a solid “Plan B” if Abrams’ commitments to Star Trek stood in the way.
It would have been interesting to watch Chloë Grace Moretz wield a lightsaber with Matthew Vaughn in the director’s chair. Vaughn has a distinctively more violent style and tongue-in-cheek style than what ended up coming with the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He went on to do Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), and The King’s Man (2021) as well as Argylle this past year.
In all, it’s also not surprising that the Star Wars franchise didn’t want to go the Matthew Vaughn route, even with J.J. Abrams ultimately taking the gig. At the time, Vaughn’s style likely wouldn’t have aligned with getting folks back into the franchise. And they wanted to go with a new face (Daisy Ridley) instead of a more well-established talent like Chloë Grace Moretz.
We’ll say that things worked out for Star Wars in this way, but there’s no denying that the franchise would have gone a totally different path had this not been the case. And it really would have been fascinating.
