• News

Knights of the Old Republic movies rumored to be going forward

Another Star Wars trilogy looks to be in development, but this one looks to revolve around classic Star Wars video game, Knights of the Old Republic.

Ozzie Mejia

May 24, 2019 3:55 PM

1

Let's end the week on some lighter video game news, as Shacknews checks in on Hollywood. And yes, there appears to be video game movie news. Good news, not "Sonic delayed to 2020 because he looks like a cat pooped out the live-action Aladdin Genie" news. There appears to be movement on a new Star Wars movie trilogy, one that should appeal specifically to fans of the franchise's video game universe.

On Thursday, Buzzfeed reported that Lucasfilm is working on a movie based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This was the action-RPG that was first released in 2003 on PC, PlayStation 2, and the first-generation Xbox, centered around a story that took place thousands of years before the Skywalker saga. If the original movies were "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," then KOTOR took place an even longer time before that. Buzzfeed has multiple sources pointing to Laeta Kalogridis, of Avatar and Shutter Island fame, as the movie's screenwriter. Kalogridis and parent company Disney have not commented on these rumors.

If the KOTOR trilogy goes forward, it will stand separate to the next theatrical trilogy set to be released under Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. In fact, the KOTOR trilogy may not even be a theatrical trilogy at all. There's always the possibility that Disney could use it to bolster their Disney+ streaming service lineup, which already boasts a strong slate of original movies and programming.

The original Knights of the Old Republic follows the player's journey against the evil Darth Malak, apprentice of the Dark Lord Revan, and his unstoppable Sith army. The twist is that the main hero is Revan himself, who was ambushed by the remaining Jedi forces and left without his memory. With his mind reshaped to be loyal to the Republic, Revan becomes the main hero of the KOTOR story. He travels alongside Bastila Shan, HK-47, and others to stand against Darth Malak's forces, all the while not knowing that it was Malak who orchestrated the attack on Revan that left him in his current state. Such is the treacherous nature of the Sith master/apprentice relationship, as one always looks to betray the other.

The KOTOR series has branched out well beyond the original game, with stories from that era continuing to unfold on a regular basis thanks to BioWare's MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Most recently, BioWare unveiled the next expansion for The Old Republic called Onslaught.

Shacknews will stay on top of this story and report on any developments.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?