David Benioff and D.B. Weiss reportedly scaling back Star Wars work amid new Netflix deal

A year and a half ago, back when the final season of Game of Thrones was still itself more than a year away, Lucasfilm revealed that creators and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were heading to a galaxy far, far away. Benioff and Weiss, who shepherded HBO's epic fantasy series through eight hit seasons, were announced as the creative force behind a new series of Star Wars films separate from the main Skywalker saga, but then they returned to Westeros to finish Game of Thrones' final season, and we haven't heard much about Star Wars from them since. 

Now that Game of Thrones is over and Benioff and Weiss are keeping their hands off of any upcoming spinoffs HBO is developing, they have yet another item on their plate, in the form of a massive new Netflix deal that will allow them to develop new stories at the streaming giant. We've already seen reports that this new, nine-figure deal has all but killed their previously announced HBO project Confederate, but what it could mean for their upcoming Star Wars project?

The Hollywood Reporter just released a new piece analyzing Benioff and Weiss' Netflix deal and the soundness of the streamer's investment in the showrunners, who were relatively unknown before Game of Thrones exploded into the most popular show in the world, and tucked inside the report is a little bit of information on their Star Wars trajectory. According to THR's report, Benioff and Weiss are now "writing a treatment" for a trilogy of Star Wars films, with a commitment to script "at least one of the films" themselves. That's interesting, because the original plan was that Benioff and Weiss would take screenplay duties on all three of their Star Wars films, and THR also notes that it's currently "unclear" whether they'll take on anything but writing duties.

So it would seem Benioff and Weiss have scaled back on their Star Wars work, and though THR's report does not note whether that's directly connected to the Netflix deal, it does stress that there is new pressure on Benioff and Weiss — who apparently resisted even starting their Star Wars project until they'd completed Game of Thrones — to multitask.

"The only way to make a deal like this work is if you have multiple shows," an unnamed exec told THR. "The bet is that they'll do another Game of Thrones, and that's a big bet."

Still, other sources say it's not as big a problem as it looks. Another unnamed person "familiar with the Netflix deal" said the streaming company was fully aware of Benioff and Weiss' Star Wars work commitments and commended Benioff and Weiss for "a lot of ambition."

"It's not going to be 10 years [until] Netflix sees their first output," the source said.

According to Walt Disney Company head Bob Iger, Benioff and Weiss' first Star Wars film will be the next installment in the franchise after the upcoming Rise of Skywalker, and will debut in theaters December 16, 2022. Hopefully that means we won't have to wait much longer to learn exactly what Benioff and Weiss have planned.