The 2013 video game “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” is beloved in the “Star Wars” community. And we know a film set in that universe—centuries before the current Skywalker Saga that has consumed “Star Wars” for 40 years — is coming because Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy said so recently. But it was thought, and many cases assumed, that these ancient times “Star Wars” movies would be the ones developed and written by the “Game of Thrones” creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.
However, that’s maybe not the case. Buzzfeed reports that a movie based on “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” video game is being developed, but by Laeta Kalogridis, a frequent James Cameron collaborator and screenwriter known for work on “Avatar**,” “Terminator Genisys,” “Alita: Battle Angel” and Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” among other projects.
According to the report, Kalogridis is close to finishing the first script of a potential ‘Knights Of The Old Republic’ trilogy, which would make three trilogies in the works at Lucasfilm when you count Rian Johnson’s burgeoning idea and the trilogy being created by the ‘GOT’ duo.
“Knights of the Old Republic is a role-playing game set nearly 4,000 years before the events of 1977’s “Star Wars: A New Hope” and centers an ancient Jedi versus the Sith conflict. Fans have clamored for a film set in the Old Republic for years, and if Lucasfilm likes what they see, the trilogy could be a go. “Star Wars” has been known as the domain of white men so far (to be fair, the ‘Star Wars’ story group is very diverse and run by many women of color) but Kalogridis would be the first female creator to write a movie should the movie get greenlit.
Kalogridis isn’t exactly a household name yet, but she really should be considering everything she’s worked on and how in-demand she’s been in over the years. She also wrote Cameron’s “Fantastic Voyage” screenplay that he was going to produce Paul Greengrass (that fell apart years ago) and while she hasn’t always earned the final screenplay credit, various studios have tapped her talent throughout the years. She wrote early versions of “Ghost in the Shell” for DreamWorks, penned an initial draft of “X-Men,” rewrote a “Wonder Woman” script for WB circa (pre-2010) and was involved in a “Lone Ranger” remake at Columbia. She also has screenwriting credits on “Alexander” and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” among several other gigs. Most recently, she’s known for creating and producing Netflix’s “Altered Carbon.”
The news probably has many hardcore “Star Wars” fans wondering: if it’s Kalogridis writing a film during the Old Republic era, where does this leave the “Game Of Thrones” guys, but there are hundreds of years in between and plenty of room for them to play within that space should they choose it. **technically she has no “Avatar” screenwriting credit, but she worked on it for years and all that work ended up landing her an executive producer title.