‘Star Wars’ Spinoff: ‘The Golden Compass’ Screenwriter Chris Weitz To Handle Rewrites

A couple weeks back, the Inquisitr reported on the first Star Wars spinoff losing Gary Whitta as the writer after finishing a first draft. Now The Hollywood Reporter states that the Book Of Eli writer has officially been replaced by Chris Weitz, writer/director of such films as The Golden Compass, About A Boy, and writer of the upcoming live action Cinderella movie from Disney.

Although Weitz’s credits are a bit of a mixed bag (The Golden Compass failed to live up its potential) it is worth noting that About A Boy was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in the year it was released, so don’t start discounting the spinoff as a failure just yet.

“His hiring on Star Wars isn’t the first time the franchise has seen a change of writers. Michael Arndt worked on a treatment and script for what would become Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens before leaving it more than a year after commencing. J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan took over the scripting duties.”

While this isn’t the first time a writer has been replaced in the Star Wars universe, we still have yet to the see the end result of the aforementioned Michael Arndt replacement – and that’s a writer that’s given us such gems as Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3, and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Despite being owned by Disney, the same studio that owns Marvel, there are still some worries. The new Lucasfilm regime under Disney has yet to build up the faith that Marvel has over the past eight years, and it’ll take at least a few stunning Star Wars flicks before the general public starts to put as much trust in them.

On the other hand, despite how precious Star Wars is to fans around the world, the reality is that writers are cycled through all the time in Hollywood films, even ones that turn out to be classics, so it may be a bit unfair to cast too much judgment on Weitz so early. And according to Screen Rant the film is due very soon to start shooting in Mexico, so chances are that’s Weitz’s work will mainly be a clean-up and polish job on the base work that Whitta has already done.

But what do all of you think? Do you think Chris Weitz is the right man to finish the first Star Wars spinoff film, or do you think the job was meant for better hands? Let us know below!