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Happy Friday, folks!

Today, The Playlist ran a story in response to Wednesday’s newsletter about Steven Soderbergh and David Fincher flirting with Star Wars, and while I commend the site on its reporting, particularly with respect to those two filmmakers, a well-placed source tells me it’s roughly “60% percent accurate,” and I’m inclined to agree.

Fincher’s movie may have been set between Episodes VIII and IX, per The Playlist, but it would’ve been shot after Episode IX, and even though The Playlist’s source considered this “a non-story,” the site only confirmed my reporting that Fincher had discussions about a secret Star Wars spinoff that had never been reported. I don’t know how that’s a non-story, but okay…

Meanwhile, if Lucasfilm liked Fincher’s pitch and they were willing to pay him, then why didn’t it work out? If it wasn’t creative control — i.e., final cut — then what was it? The Playlist never says why things didn’t work out.

To be fair, Fincher’s movie never got nearly as far down the line as Soderbergh’s movie, which boasted a completed script from Scott Z. Burns (Contagion) that cost $3 million dollars, so I don’t mind The Playlist framing it as something like, ‘Fincher’s project didn’t progress far enough to even prompt a discussion of final cut.’

However, at the same time, I’m told that final cut was always the big hurdle, and to me, it felt like The Playlist’s sources downplayed the talks just to cover for the fact that Fincher was never going to get final cut, nor would Soderbergh, for that matter.

That’s perfectly understandable on Lucasfilm’s part, just as it’s perfectly understandable that Disney’s Bob Iger and Alan Bergman wouldn’t want to spend $200 million at that point in time on Soderbergh’s movie, which was never formally greenlit. It just boasted a finished script — something Lucasfilm never saw from several of the filmmakers who have been linked to Star Wars projects in development over the past decade.

This isn’t just coming from me; it’s coming from someone familiar with Soderbergh’s project who couldn’t blame Disney leadership for putting the kibosh on the risky picture. Let me remind you, it would’ve starred Adam Driver, who doesn’t seem to have “the force” when it comes to the box office, no offense to him.

I just think Iger and Bergman recognized that the franchise had to move on from certain characters in Episodes VII-IX rather than telling another story in that corner of the galaxy.

Again, props to The Playlist, whose story is clearly well-sourced and reported, but it also doesn’t fully make sense, either. I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree and chalk it up to another Hollywood development mystery. Sometimes, those are better than the truth, anyway.

Moving on, I saw David Michod’s boxing movie Christy last night, and I think Sydney Sweeney’s ballsy performance gives her more than a fighting chance at an Oscar nomination — Ben Foster should be in the conversation, too — but we’ll see how that film is received by audiences in just a few weeks. I plan to write more about it soon, though, as I really liked it, and wish Black Bear the best of luck with its release.

Tonight’s top story concerns an upcoming remake of a 2009 Ben Affleck movie, and I also write about the starry pairing that Universal is paying for to power its Miami Vice reboot from director Joseph Kosinski.

There are also items about Johnny Depp’s new Christmas movie, James Bond’s mysterious pricetag, and the greatest older man-younger girl pairing since The Professional? Plus, a look at the trailer for Bart Layton’s crime movie Crime 101, which finds Mark Ruffalo chasing another criminal after Task, only this one is played by Chris Hemsworth instead of Tom Pelphrey.

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