According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry is “in early talks” with Disney and Lucasfilm to direct a standalone Star Wars spin-off about Obi-Wan Kenobi, everybody’s favorite desert hermit. The talks are apparently “at the earliest of stages” and there’s no script yet, but if things work out, Disney apparently wants Daldry to have a hand in crafting the whole project. Assuming this is all accurate, then, it sounds like the studio wants to make sure it has a director in place—preferably one who won’t go off book and have too much fun—before it really begins working on the movie. In fact, things are so early that nobody knows if Ewan McGregor will be playing Kenobi again, which also means it’s hard for anyone to say if this will be a prequel to the prequels or a prequel to A New Hope.
As for Daldry, he’s the director behind The Hours, The Reader, Billy Elliot, and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, none of which seem remotely similar to a Star Wars movie, but maybe Disney is planning for it to be more of a drama story than an adventure with space wizards.