The Mandalorian Star Carl Weathers Wants To Direct A Prequel
The Mandalorian star Carl Weathers wants to direct a prequel about his character Greef Karga.
When Carl Weathers was first cast in the Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian, he seemed the perfect choice for the kind of throwback vibe Disney was going for. We’ve seen Weathers on the big screen hunting down the Predator alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it only seems fitting to have him pop up on the small screen to help out the next generation of younger badasses. Even as his Greef Karga character has evolved on the show, Weathers has gotten more involved in the production and admitted in an interview with Hypebeast that he’d like to direct a Star Wars movie focusing on his character.
They asked the star of The Mandalorian what kind of Star Wars film he’d like to direct if he could and he admitted that he would love to direct a movie centered on his Greef Karga character. However, this wouldn’t be some vanity project in which Weathers would star in his own film as the main character. Instead, he would want to follow in the footsteps of Harrison Ford and get Disney to find someone younger to play a younger version of Greef Karga.
Why focus on the character in his younger years, though? The way Carl Weathers sees it, the movie could provide some important context for how Karga acts in The Mandalorian. We’ve seen him go from being a gruff warrior out to make some money to the protector of an entire planet. According to Weathers, his dream film would show us “those formative teenage years, watching him learn both bad habits and good ones” that ultimately help “build the man that we see today.”
While he didn’t namecheck the earlier spinoff (perhaps because it was such a financial disaster for Disney), what this star of The Mandalorian is describing sounds a lot like what we got in Solo: A Star Wars Story. That movie effectively worked backward, asking us how the adult Han Solo could end up as an outward cynic with enough hidden optimism to join the Rebellion. Accordingly, we got a movie that showed both his willingness to help rebels and his heartbreak over getting betrayed by his girlfriend (played to perfection by Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke).
As much as we’d love to see a film spinoff of The Mandalorian, it’s not really clear how likely we are to ever get a film like what Carl Weathers is describing. After all, Disney has been cracking down on how much Star Wars content they produce, and they had to downsize their future cinematic plans years ago after the very similar Star Wars: A Solo Story proved to be such a disappointment. Then again, Disney+ is the home for many TV series that were once planned as films (including Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett), so we could very well get a small screen spinoff movie if Bob Iger decides it will goose those Disney+ subscription numbers.
However, whether or not we get this or any other spinoff films of The Mandalorian, it’s really cool to see how invested Carl Weathers has become in both his character and the show itself. He’s already directed two episodes, and we certainly think he has the chops to bring us a cool Star Wars movie. And let’s be honest: it can’t really be any more disappointing than The Rise of Skywalker, right?
