'Obi-Wan Kenobi’ was getting a trilogy, until ‘Solo’ bombed at box office

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Had “Solo: A Star Wars Story” not disappointed at the box office in 2018, then “Obi-Wan Kenobi” might’ve been a full-fledged movie trilogy instead of a six-episode Disney+ limited series. Screenwriter Stuart Beattie has “story by” and/or writing credits on multiple “Obi-Wan” episodes, but he recently told The Direct that he had no involvement with the Disney+ series. Beattie’s credit carried over from his work drafting the first movie in an intended “Obi-Wan” trilogy.

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Beattie said his original “Obi-Wan” pitch to Lucasfilm was “three stories because there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make in order to go from Obi-Wan to Ben [in ‘A New Hope’]. The first one was the first movie, which was the show, which was, ‘Surrender to the will of the Force. Transport your will, surrender your will. Leave the kid alone.'”

“The second [movie] was thinking about where Kenobi ends up,” Beattie continued. “And one of the most powerful and probably the most powerful moment in all of Obi-Wan’s story is that moment where he sacrifices himself in ‘A New Hope.’ Great moment, you know, makes you cry. But, if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty sudden thing, to just kind of go be fighting a guy, to see Luke and go, ‘I’m gonna die.’ You know, that to me, that required forethought. That required pre-acceptance that this was going to happen.”

Beattie’s second “Obi-Wan” film would follow the character coming to terms with his own mortality, thus giving more clarity to his “A New Hope” sacrifice. The film would “get him to that point where Obi Wan has accepted the idea that he’s going to die, and that he’s going to die willingly at a crucial moment.” A second “Obi-Wan” movie never moved into development as Beattie was still working away on the first film when the studio pulled the plug.

“It was ‘Solo’ that changed the direction of the system,” Beattie said. “I like ‘Solo,’ personally, but it hadn’t made a lot of money…it certainly crushed us. Devastated, absolutely devastated. But, that’s the business, you know, highs and lows. I’m glad it got made. I’m glad the show got made. I’m proud of my story that [got] told. I’m glad my characters are all through it. And I’m glad I got credit for it. I wish, I wish they’d been able to make my movies.”

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