Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Directors Only Did The Series For The Health Insurance
The Daniels joked that they accepted the job of directing a Star Wars: Skeleton Crew episode to maintain their health insurance with the Director's Guild of America.
Fans have been patiently waiting for the arrival of the new Jon Watts and Christopher Ford-created Star Wars series, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. It may surprise some Disney+ fans to learn that the filmmaking duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively regarded as “The Daniels” were something of a skeleton crew on the project themselves. According to a write-up in MovieWeb, the Everything Everywhere All At Once filmmakers agreed to guest direct an episode of the series as a means of keeping their health insurance, likely through the directors guild, which requires a certain number of days on set per year to maintain.
The article references an Instagram post delivered by one of the Daniels clearing up the confusion surrounding the duo’s involvement in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Many fans across the internet had mistakenly come to think the Daniels had created the Disney+ original series, when they had only signed on to direct one episode. Jon Watts reportedly approached the pair before Everything Everywhere All At Once had even come out, with interest in their unique filmmaking style, and inquired about their availability to work on his Star Wars project.
Watts likely tapped the now Academy Award-winning directors based on the success of their previous film outing, 2016’s Swiss Army Man, an esoteric film that follows Paul Dano’s Hank as he utilizes a corpse played by Daniel Radcliffe for a number of bizarre utilities. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is set to arrive sometime this year and take place concurrently with other Disney+ series’ such as The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. While no casting information has been revealed at this time, the series is said to follow a group of four young children who find themselves lost in the galaxy far, far away as they struggle to return home.
Though the health insurance comment may have been intended to be a tongue-in-cheek joke, Daniel Kwan punctuated the statement with a series of exclamation points, highlighting that the humorous statement is also true and significant due to the stringent rules of the DGA’s healthcare coverage requirements. Obviously, the Daniels were happy to direct the episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew regardless of their health coverage status, as indicated by the pair’s shared excitement to be affiliated with the project, but it does seem as though the auteur filmmakers would rather be working on something wholly original. This is terrific news for any huge fans of Everything Everywhere All At Once, as Kwan clarified that the pair have already begun planning their next original outing.
With no word on who else is affiliated with Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, fans are looking forward to seeing how the series will cross over with the extended Star Wars universe when the series eventually lands on Disney+. Jon Watts is currently listed as the only director for the series, but we may see the likes of Jon Favreau and other Star Wars alumni taking guest spots, as well as auteur filmmakers such as the Daniels.
