Gary Whitta Departs Star Wars Spinoff For Mark Millar's Starlight

Screenwriter Gary Whitta has completed a first draft for the 2016 Star Wars spinoff and has announced his departure in order to write the script for the Mark Millar Starlight movie.

The Hollywood trade sites are stating with Whitta leaving Star Wars, a new screenwriter should be announced soon.

Apparently after a year of working on the Star Wars spinoff script with director Gareth Edwards, Whitta has decided to move on to the Millar movie.

Both Edwards and Whitta released the following statements (via THR):

“Gary has been a wonderful, inspired contributor and I enjoyed working with him tremendously,” said Edwards. “I’m so grateful for all of his contributions. ”

Whitta added: “The year I spent working with Lucasfilm on this Star Wars film has been by far the most rewarding period of my entire career. As a lifelong Star Wars fan I’m deeply grateful to have had the rare opportunity to contribute to a new chapter in its ongoing cinematic legacy. The film is going to be amazing.”

The untitled Star Wars spinoff movie has a December 16, 2016 release date with the plot rumored to potentially center around the Rebellion’s theft of the Death Star plans or even a Han Solo origin movie starring Aaron Paul.

Regarding Mark Millar’s Starlight movie, it is described as “The Flash Gordon meets The Dark Knight Returns” as it “centers on a space hero who saved the universe 35 years ago but came back to Earth, where no one believed his fantastic stories. He settled down, got married, had kids and got old, but then is called back for one last adventure when his old rocket shows up.”

Whitta also added the following on Twitter:

My year of work in a galaxy far, far away is done! I’m onto my next project, adapting @mrmarkmillar’s STARLIGHT for 20th Century Fox!

— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) January 10, 2015

This is by far the most I’ve ever enjoyed writing a title page. See you in 2016! #MTFBWY pic.twitter.com/Wr3Ij1XUKj

— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) January 10, 2015