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John Boyega co-writing Attack the Block 2 and discusses original Star Wars plan for Finn’s Force abilities

November 29th, 2022 by Marc Comments

It looks like John Boyega has plans moving forward… but Star Wars isn’t in there, it seems.

A while back we reported that Boyega was back for a sequel to Joe Cornish’s 2011 hit Attack the Block (here), the movie that made Boyega a star, but it seems that he’s doing more than just coming back as Moses once more to fight aliens, as this time he’s also helping to write the story.

“This process has been fantastic. The story has actually been presented by myself and Joe Cornish,” Boyega says.

“We’ve collaborated heavily on making a story that makes sense for Moses and the other characters, and the new characters that will be coming up in the sequel too. And then, also, there’s different perspectives in writing it, with Joe having his perspective and me having mine. London has changed so much, in so many different ways, over the years since the first movie. We’re just tryin’ to make sure we explore all of that, while bringing in a whole different vibe to that crazy ass first movie that we made.”

 

This is all very exciting as Attack the Block was a cracking little movie and Cornish and Boyega are always worth watching whatever they put out.

But will the movie be happening any time soon?

“We’re gettin’ there,” Boyega says, “Obviously, we don’t wanna release no dates to anybody because we wanna take care of the creative process. We have the main spine of the story, but we’re still in the lab, just making sure the story is right. Story is everything. But it won’t be too long. I’ve given them the drums to speed up the process. Hopefully soon, we’ll have an announcement for when we’ll be around London, messin’ stuff up.”

This is, as I said already, very exciting but what about Finn, his character from the Star Wars sequel trilogy, will we be seeing him return? After all, there’s a lot of untold story there that the sequel fans will want told.

“At this point I’m cool off it. I’m good off it [Star Wars],” Boyega says (in the interview below), “I think Finn is at a good confirmation point where you can just enjoy him in other things, the games, the animation. But I feel like ‘[Episode] VII’ to ‘[Episode] IX’ was good for me.”

“To be fair, [with] the allies that I’ve found within Joel Taylor and Jamie Foxx, Teyonah Parris, Viola Davis, all these people I’ve been working with… versatility is my path.”

Now, this is disappointing news as fans will know that Finn’s character and story were kicked off in great style with Episode VII: The Force Awakens hinting that Finn was Force sensitive and perhaps and and Daisy Ridley’s Rey were the future of the Jedi but Episode VIII The Last Jedi completely ignored it and by the time we got to the final movie, there was so much ground to cover that, while it was hinted at, it was never resolved.

But… surely it was originally meant to be part of the plot of the trilogy?

“It was a discussion from VII that was kind of brewing, because you didn’t know which way it was gonna go, right?” Boyega says. “And then VIII went in another direction. So I think with VIII going in another direction, when you’re bringing someone to the third, they have to kind of like appreciate what’s happened in VIII and then still try and make a narrative of it. And JJ [Abrams], I mean JJ really wanted– Force Awakens is the movie that JJ directed, he was kind of pinpoint plotting a trajectory. But obviously, with the different creative differences in the middle and then getting to the third, it’s kind of like he still wanted to you know just force it in there, just squeeze it in there.”

“So that’s where you get the moment between Finn and Jannah, and Jannah asks him, ‘How do you know?’ And he just says, ‘It’s a feeling.’ He just had to get something in there that told you why there was a Stormtrooper who held his own long enough against a Sith… or Sith wannabe to a certain extent, you know, [with] Kylo. So it was interesting you know that when those talks were coming in the first stage. And I thought, obviously, you know, you get the lightsaber, you start swinging, and defending, and I’m like, ‘Nah… Yeah, yeah… last time I checked, you can’t even just swing that you know a certain type of way. When Han was holding it briefly, what did he do? He held it to like get the locks off or something. It was like manual labor. But you know, you’re just using it to defend and you know, you defend your friend, you must have something in you. But you know, who knows if maybe down the line, they have like a younger actor or whatever, and they try to expand on Finn. Who knows if we get that. You know, we get to see like what is it about this dude that made him so special.”

It seems clear here that Rian Johnson’s Last Jedi derailed Finn’s story and Boyega knows it as well as anyone else does and it’s a shame as he was a massive Star Wars fan and getting the gig meant the world to him only to be sidelined in the next two movies.

Anyways, despite what he says, I would hope that down the line we might see him back in a Disney+ series or future movie to give Finn the ending we all hoped he would have.

Just us? Let me know…

Sources: Comicbook, Collider & MTV

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….