Osgood Perkins is ready to join a galaxy far, far away.
While promoting the release of his newest film The Monkey during a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), a Redditor that goes by the handle Equal-Blacksmith6730 asked the acclaimed horror filmmaker what project he’d like to tackle if he had the “budget or technology to make into a movie”.
The director’s response:
“The collected dreams and nightmares of Darth Vader told as short stories.”
Vader: A Star Wars Horror Story?
You read that right. Perkins basically pitched a Star Wars horror project based on the tortured dreams of the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Darth Vader.
How serious is Perkins? It’s hard to know, because that was the extent of his comments on the subject. Was he being cheeky or was this his way of floating the idea out to the powers that be at Lucasfilm?
The Many Genres of Star Wars
At first glance, Perkins’ idea sounds like a long shot, but the space opera franchise has been testing the waters with forays into different subgenres since Disney picked up Lucasfilm for a cool 4 billion dollars.
Rogue One was conceived as a war film, The Mandalorian is basically a space western, Skeleton Crew is a kid’s adventure tale, and Andor’s tone has more in common with serious, adult dramas.
So it’s not like there’s no room for exploration in other genres when it comes to Star Wars. And with horror crushing it at the box office lately (and showing that it can be done on a reasonable budget), it’s not like an Osgood Perkins-led Star Wars horror movie is the craziest idea.
Besides, maybe it’s time Star Wars was intentionally horrifying rather than accidentally so.
What do you think? Could a Star Wars horror movie fly with general audiences? Would you go to the theater to see a movie about Darth Vader’s nightmares? Do you think Kathleen Kennedy would ever greenlight a horror movie set in the Star Wars universe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
