If your first reason for why J.J. Abrams was chosen as the Episode IX director is basically “he has time on his hands,” then your “analysis” is probably shit and not worth reading.
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THIS is just how relaxed and available Abrams is:
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Not only did he already have an agreement with Paramount, they actually accommodated him so he can work on SW and another studio can’t come snap him up. That’s how busy and in demand he is, that he had to rearrange his entire work schedule and his preexisting agreement with a major studio–a change it agreed to because it wants him so badly–in order to do IX.
Readily available? Fuck outta here. J.J. didn’t come back because he had nothing better to do, he came back because he badly wanted to. And likely, I suspect, because he was begged to.
Bob Iger was banging on JJ’s door with Boyega and Ridley waiting in the backseat of his whip throwing puppy dog eyes at JJ.
🤢 Johnson apologist
So basically Iger is the Rey to JJ’s Luke, while John and Daisy are sharing Chewie’s fur suit and broke the door down? Makes sense to me.
Okay but this just really underlines how desperate some people at Disney/LFL were to have JJ back. Also they must really have offered JJ something substantial to return when he initially said he didn’t want to. And I doubt it is just money, he could get that easier and with less risk elsewhere.
Paramount had every right to keep JJ to the contract he’d signed yet chose to accommodate him on this? Yeah I know Disney is a freaking mastodon, but Paramount isn’t exactly a small time indie company is it? Sounds like JJ is a guy who can pretty much name his projects and conditions as he pleases.
Finally, did this person take a single look at JJ’s IMDB profile and the huge number of projects he’s been involved in since TFA premiered and till now? Like, the man has been the opposite of idle.
I am nearly positive that JJ’s agreement with Paramount came with a penalty clause in case of breach of contract. Either Paramount agreed to waive it because they preferred to modify the agreement rather than have JJ pay it and walk, or Disney/LF agreed to pay the penalty (or whatever portion of it, since JJ wasn’t in full breach) to Paramount so JJ can work on IX. And that’s on top of whatever they’re paying for JJ’s work. Both Paramount and the Mouse want JJ, bad.
I was actually going to leave out the IMDB profile comparisons because a lot of JJ’s credits since 2016 are as executive director, which can mean anything from “I lent the project my big important name without doing anything” to “I did everything that wasn’t anyone else’s job.” With him I’m guessing it was somewhere in between, like bringing money into the projects plus differing levels of creative work. But even assuming he only put in work into half the listed projects, the comparison between him and RJ is hilarious or sad depending on how you look at it. They’re not even in the same playing field.
This is JJ between TFA and EpIX:
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This is RJ between TLJ and... actually he has nothing after TLJ other than the untitled first movie in the trilogy that has no release date yet, so I decided to be generous and went back 10 years.
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And yeah, these are director credits as opposed to producer credits and maybe it is too soon for RJ to be working again or something, except JJ’s been working nonstop after TFA and has a video game that he was creative director for coming out in 2019 in addition to EpIX. RJ doesn’t have anything going on since TLJ, not as a producer, not as a writer or anything else that I can find. But, you know, I bet he’s beat and needs his rest unlike that slacker JJ.