John Boyega says he had a "very honest conversation" with a Disney exec after criticizing Star Wars
Speaking with GQ in September, John Boyega offered some pretty frank criticisms of the Star Wars series, saying that Disney knew “fuck all” about what to do with him and his character—or any of the non-white characters, for that matter—while Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver were given a chance to add all sorts of “nuance” to Rey and Kylo Ren. Boyega, essentially, was saying that he didn’t care if he burned bridges with the studio because Disney hadn’t made much of an effort to seem like it cared about him anyway. He also noted that he didn’t want to just dismiss his concerns by saying “it was a great experience,” because he’d rather save that for when it actually is a great experience.
It was all pretty serious stuff coming from a guy who had been a part of these huge Disney movies, and while there’s no way to know if it’ll ever result in any changes to how the Disney machine operates, it did at least result in a “very transparent conversation” between Boyega and an unnamed Disney executive. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Boyega says that after the interview he got a call from some higher-up at Disney who wanted to offer their perspective on how things went down and also give him a chance to talk about his experience some more. He says it was “very honest,” and while there’s no indication that it means Finn is getting a spin-off any time soon, he points out that him being vocal about his issues with a huge company like Disney is more about trying to “help the next man, the guy who wants to be the assistant DOP, the guy that wants to be a producer.”
At least partially because of his experience with Star Wars, Boyega has now launched his own production company, UpperRoom Productions, which—as we’ve previously reported—is working with Netflix to develop non-English films for people in Africa.