Few Hollywood writers provoke stronger gut reactions from more people than Damon Lindelof. Between Lost, Star Trek, Prometheus, The Leftovers, The Hunt, and more—including the responses to his latest HBO series, which ran the gamut from “Ugh, Watchmen” to “Oooh, Watchmen!”—Lindelof gets a rise out of people almost every time he puts pen to paper. So, obviously, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with him getting his fingerprints all over the MCU or Star Wars, right? That won’t make two of the most reactive fanbases on the planet freak out?
Certainly, the writer-producer indicated a move in that direction recently, mentioning just such an intent during a recent interview with Fandom, mostly centered on how he’s almost certainly not coming back for a potential Watchmen season 2. (“I don’t feel like I could satisfactorily continue that story by myself. But I would love to see someone else do it.”) But when asked what franchises he might be interested in tackling next, Lindelof did not lack for ambition, citing both the MCU and Star Wars as potential targets.
I think that doing something in the Marvel universe, anywhere in the Marvel Universe, would be really potentially exciting for me, especially as they start to get a little bit more experimental. Some of the things that I’ve seen for Wandavision, for example, just feel like, “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” Particularly in a television space. And, at some point, but certainly not in the immediate future, I feel like I would love to do something in the Star Wars universe. Maybe a decade from now when I would no longer be blamed for ruining it. That would be a hoot.
(Oh, by the way: All the Disney+ Marvel shows, including the very out-there Wandavision, just went on production hiatus. Can’t get away from COVID-19 news that easy, folks.)
All of this is, of course, hypothetical. But also, Lindelof does have a proven track record for taking aging properties and injecting them with a fresh dose of zeitgeisty, sometimes extremely annoying life, so it’s not like it’s impossible that Disney wouldn’t let him take a crack at things. If nothing else, his take on Star Wars, especially, would certainly not be safe, and given how laurel resting has treated that franchise in recent years, it’d be hard to say it wouldn’t be worth seeing what he might eventually produce in that galaxy wot’s so long and far away.