Everything Everywhere All At Once Directors The Daniels Didn't Sell Out For Star Wars (According To Daniels)

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — collectively known as the "Daniels" — are the latest indie darlings to make the move to the world of Disney blockbusters. Cinema purists may lament the transition, but the Academy Award-winning directors of "Everything Everywhere All At Once" have assured everyone that the "Star Wars" project they were hired for is relatively small and not a permanent position. In other words, just because Daniels are directing one episode of a "Star Wars" television series doesn't mean they've become corporate shills.

At this point, pulling filmmakers from the indie world and singing them on to big-budget tentpole projects have become a tradition for modern Hollywood, especially for Disney. James Gunn rose from the goopy depths of Troma's campy B-movie exploitation to become one of the most influential figures in superhero blockbusters. The quirky New Zealand weirdo director Taika Waititi has now helmed projects for both Marvel and "Star Wars." Ryan Coogler, Chloe Zhao, Destin Daniel Cretton ... the list goes on. To be fair, a chunk of these have returned to their indie roots ("Fast and Furious" director Justin Lin is currently working on an indie project, for instance), but others have continued to travel deeper into major studio work.

Daniels are arguably more well-known than most of these names were before their big studio breaks. "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is A24's highest-grossing film ever and became the most-awarded film of all time, making it one of the most successful independent productions in cinema history. Their next project is the "Star Wars" Disney+ series "The Skeleton Crew," a coming-of-age story starring Jude Law and created by Jon Watts, himself a former indie director who moved on to Marvel Studios' "Spider-Man" movies. As Daniel Kwan pointed out in his Instagram Stories, the duo is only guest-directing one episode, and the negative reaction is hyperbole:

"Lol, all of the people @ing us about getting sucked up by the 'corporate machine' can chill. These headlines are always misleading. Don't worry. We aren't working on a whole series, we guest-directed one episode. Jon Watts approached us to do an episode a while ago (before 'EEAAO' even came out). We love Jon, love Star Wars, love learning new tech, we love meeting new cast and crew, and we needed the days to keep our healthcare (!!!) so it was an easy yes."

Studios have a tendency to hire talented directors to work on major IP without letting them truly experiment with their own original ideas. This venture, however, seems like more of an experiment in big-budget filmmaking for Daniels, and doesn't seem like it will tie them down to a one-studio behemoth. If there's still any reservation, Kwan assured people that their next film "will be an original Daniels project."