D&D, which is what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are referred to online, made the news twice in a matter of days. The Game of Thrones showrunners made some incredible comments at the Austin Film Festival a few days ago — comments that went viral online thanks to a Redditor who attended the panel, as the two producers practically confirmed they had no idea what they were doing with Game of Thrones.
Then, a few days later Benioff and Weiss announced their departure from Disney’s new Star Wars trilogy, which should have premiered in 2022. The reports that followed tied D&D’s decision to exit the Disney deal with the poor performance of final season Game of Thrones. Some people went as far as to say that the atrocious season finale of Game of Thrones was what sealed their fates when it comes to Star Wars.
The Game of Thrones subreddit (r/Freefolk) was filled with D&D mockery over the past few days, especially after the Star Wars announcement, with Game of Thrones fans rejoicing at the prospect of D&D having lost a key Disney contract because of the poor job they did with season 8 of the HBO series:
Redditors also discovered evidence that supported the idea that Benioff & Weiss’s dismal Thrones performance led to Disney firing the two all the way back in May when season 8 ended. It all came from a Patreon-only episode of The Storm podcast, where Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson apparently said she heard from sources that the duo was let go months ago, after the finale, but just before D&D announced their lucrative Netflix deal.
The news made it to Reddit, of course, where it stayed up for a while:
However, Joanna Robinson took to Twitter to clarify the confusion, saying that the podcast episode in question had been “wildly misrepresented” by the people who had brought it to Reddit:
She then pulled the episode, and the author of the Reddit thread also removed the original post.
We may never find out the real reason why D&D left Star Wars, nor is it important at this point. What really matters here is that Disney won’t work with D&D on the upcoming Star Wars trilogy, which is a small win for all the Game of Thrones and Star Wars fans who wanted nothing to do with the duo, and for those people who signed one of the two infamous petitions targeting D&D — the one asking Disney not to let them make Star Wars.
Sadly, Benioff and Weiss proved that, in the absence of solid material to rely on, they could not create an epic final season for what’s been the best show on television over the past few years. Once the Skywalker saga concludes, Disney needs brilliant minds to come up with the next Star Wars story that could drive fans to theaters, especially after the criticism Disney faced following Star Wars: The Last Jedi, as well as the misfire that was Solo.
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