James Mangold's Boba Fett Movie Was Going To Be A Borderline R-Rated Spaghetti Western
For a long time, Boba Fett was more concept (a mercenary in a cool suit of armor) than actual character when it came to live-action "Star Wars" projects. "Star Wars" animation, as always, is another case, as was the no-longer-canonical Expanded Universe. That changed with the bounty hunter's appearance on "The Mandalorian" season 2, setting the stage for what had the potential to be a compelling off-shoot combining elements of Boba's backstory from both the "Star Wars" prequel films and animated shows (primarily, "The Clone Wars"). Unfortunately, the resulting spinoff, "The Book of Boba Fett," was about as graceful as Boba getting inadvertently taken out by a quasi-blind Han Solo in "Return of the Jedi."
"The Book of Boba Fett" started decently enough, unfolding as part revisionist Western (call it "Dances with Tusken Raiders"), part desert-set gangster drama (think "Casino" meets "Star Wars"). It then proceeded to spin its wheels, unnecessarily filling in the gaps between Boba's (sort of) cameo in "The Mandalorian" season 1 and his proper introduction in season 2, and throwing in a very peculiar — and widely-mocked — subplot involving a colorful cyborg biker gang. Finally, the show seemed to give up on being a Boba Fett show at all and morphed into "The Mandalorian" season 2.5, shoving Boba and his struggles to the side until the finale.
What makes it doubly frustrating is that "The Book of Boba Fett" had all the pieces it needed to be a great standalone, character-focused story, complete with the perfect antagonist/foil for Boba in the form of his old frenemy and philosophical diametric, Cad Bane. (The way the show did my man Cad dirty...) Adding insult to injury, it sounds like that's exactly what James Mangold had in mind, back when he was developing his since-canceled Boba Fett movie.
'I was probably scaring the s*** out of everyone'
When most people think of James Mangold, they probably think of his hard-edged action films about aging cowboys or cowboy-types confronting the consequences of a lifetime of violence ("3:10 to Yuma," "Logan") or gritty dramas about characters battling their personal demons ("Girl, Interrupted," "Walk the Line"). It's not that he's incapable of dabbling in fluffier material (see his fantasy rom-com "Kate & Leopold"), but for the most part, Mangold's genre films tend to skew fairly mature. Such was the case back when he was slated to write and direct a Boba Fett film for Lucasfilm.
"Well, at the point I was doing it, I was probably scaring the s*** out of everyone," Mangold explained to Josh Horowitz on the "Happy. Sad. Confused" podcast, describing his vision as a "borderline rated R" Spaghetti Western set on a single planet. Sadly, as exciting as that brief description sounds, Mangold's film was one of several developing "Star Wars" spinoff films that wound up being scrapped after "Solo: A Star Wars Story" bombed at the box office in 2018.
Describing it as "a moment of corporate realignment after whatever went [wrong] with the Han Solo movie," Mangold explained, "They just suddenly decided they weren't making pictures like that, and I think the opportunities in streaming presented themselves." To be fair, Mangold's not certain his film would've happened anyway, even if "Solo" hadn't flopped. "I'm not sure that it was in anyone's plans, what I was thinking about," he admitted.
Regardless, Mangold has since helmed "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" for Lucasfilm and is currently set to write and direct the studio's "Dawn of the Jedi" film. So we may yet get to see what a James Mangold Star War looks like after all.