THE HANDMAID’S TALE Director Reed Morano Has Met With Lucasfilm
Reed Morano has a new film opening at Sundance this weekend, and has two more films in the pipeline, but according to the Hollywood Reporter, she may have a larger project looming on the horizon: Star Wars. Morano recently met with Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy, and had this to say of the meeting:
I guess she was watching with her daughter and then called people and was like, 'Who's this Reed person? [...] She's amazing. We're talking about adventure movies, and I'm not even remembering that she produced Goonies. Any movie that I put my finger on that I loved when I was growing up was a movie that she produced. Anyway, it was a great meeting. Obviously, I can't say anything about what else we were talking about.
Not much to go on there - maybe they just had a nice lunch! - but Morano would be a strong addition to the Star Wars directorial stable. She made her name as a cinematographer on indie faves like Frozen River, The Skeleton Twins, and Kill Your Darlings, before making her directorial debut with the grief drama Meadowland in 2015. From there, she fought to direct the pilot of The Handmaid’s Tale, ultimately directing and shooting the show’s first three episodes and near-singlehandedly creating its visual aesthetic. Her latest film, I Think We’re Alone Now, is a Black List-approved post-apocalyptic drama starring Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning, and debuts on Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival.
Moreover, Morano is currently in production on The Rhythm Section for Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson over at Eon Productions (i.e. the folks what make those Bond films), which at $50 million is a rare mid-budget action movie that could provide a stepping stone to larger fare, should Morano want such gigs. Starring Blake Lively as an intelligence agent bent on revenge, it’s a step into a male-dominated genre for both director and star. Morano aims to fix that preconception: ”Whenever a woman wields a gun in a film, it ends up looking like they're trying to be sexy rather than they actually know what they're doing. I hate to be a dick, but I kind of think it's because men are directing those films."
What exactly Morano would be directing, should she jump over to Lucasfilm, is a mystery, as the studio has not yet announced any films beyond 2019's Episode IX, an untitled Anthology film for 2020, and Rian Johnson's new trilogy for...some point in the future. There’s more about Morano, however, in her Sundance profile over at THR, including more on I Think We’re Alone Now and the other, other film Morano has in the pipeline.
