Besides the flamboyant and outspoken Creed, Weathers is remembered for hunting the Predator (1987) as Dillon with Arnold Schwarzenegger and golf mentoring Adam Sandler as Chubbs in Happy Gilmore (1996). Although with a loaded resumé with films and TV appearances, Weathers found a dignified third act in the Star Wars universe, acknowledged by a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in The Mandalorian’ (2019 – 2023), of which he directed two episodes.

Born Jan. 14, 1948, in New Orleans, from a young age, Weathers was a natural for sports, engaging in many disciplines among them soccer, wrestling, gymnastics, boxing, and football; the latter two would have vital roles in his adult life.

As a college student, Weathers played football at San Diego State University and aided the Aztecs win the 1969 Pasadena Bowl. Still in the University, Weathers enrolled in theatre arts before graduation the following year; he signed with the Oakland Raiders as a free agent, playing eight games in the NFL as a linebacker during two seasons, in the pinnacle of American football.

After leaving the pitch, Weathers focused on acting and, like his contemporary Black American talents, found minor roles in blaxploitation movies such as Arthur Marks Bucktown and Friday Foster while juggling guest appearances in TV series such as ‘Good Times and Starsky and Hutch. However, in the following decade, Weathers would shine like a few, even while playing supporting roles, and his sports background and muscular build brought realism, furthering the physicality involved in his acting process, which was also regarded by athletes.

Weathers is mainly remembered for playing Apollo Creed, a Muhammad Ali adjacent boxer with many nicknames and natural showmanship who starts as the arrogant antagonist to Stallone’s Rocky Balboa and later becomes a friendly rival and mentor who trains Balboa to face Clubber Lang (Mr. T), after the demise of his first coach Mickey (Burgess Meredith), but perishes in Rocky IV (1985) after heavy blows by the cold Russian Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren).

Among Creed’s memorable scenes is running on the beach with Balboa during their training in Rocky III (1982), after which they share a manly and candid embrace, and coming down dressed as Uncle Sam and dancing to James Brown’s ‘Living in America’ for his entrance to the Drago exhibition match coming out of retirement. Weathers exuded charisma that he would carry to other roles and Apollo’s memory would come back in the saga through the exploits of his orphan son Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan).

In Predator, Weathers portrayed Colonel Al Dillon, a CIA agent operating in South America and friend of US Army special forces operator Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer (Schwarzenegger). Dillon had more information on their assignment that he would share with Dutch, and he still met his end in the hands of the outer space beast, but later was avenged by his comrade. In 1988, at the height of his fame, Weathers hosted ‘Saturday Night Live,’ a landmark for an entertainer career, and would come back years later to a live sketch claiming that he was running for a political office considering that he was “the Black guy in Predator” after Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, both from his mercenary squad in the picture, entered the political arena.

The fame from Rocky and Predator also led to Weathers’ leading role in Action Jackson (1988), playing the detective that names the picture that, although not well-received by critics, grossed US$ 20 million on a US$ 8 million budget, and made more US$ 45 million in VHS sales. The picture gained a cult following as current critics say that it could have been a franchise with an ongoing character like ‘Shaft.’ The cast also has Vanity, Sharon Stone, Craig T. Nelson, and ‘Predator’ alum Bill Duke. Action Jackson was ahead of its time considering the current conversation on diversity and showed that if studios backed Weathers, he would have rivaled his co-stars Stallone and Schwarzenegger, and different from the mentioned movies, Weathers’s character survived to tell the tale.

As Greef Karga, Weathers was the handler of Pedro Pascal’s Mandalorian, one of the most successful entries in the massive Star Wars franchise, acclaimed by critics and fans.
Weather showed that athletes could have a successful and respectable transition into acting and later work behind the screens as well; his prowess also displayed new sides to Black male representation and with an acclaimed third act in ‘The Mandalorian’ he earned a new generation of fans that alongside the others that already knew his oeuvre mourn him and remember his outstanding legacy.

Also Read: Beyond The Mandalorian: Expanding The Star Wars Universe

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The Original Trilogy

The story goes that when George Lucas first conceived of Star Wars it was nine films but unable to get funding for such a huge project he settled on making the middle three films – the original Star Wars trilogy. So naturally in the late 90s when Lucas wanted to revisit Star Wars he went back to the idea he originally had and made the prequel trilogy. And when Disney acquired Star Wars it made sense to make another trilogy – the sequel trilogy. But according to Lucasfilm’s president, future Star Wars films will not run in this trilogy format. We’ve already had Rogue One and Solo: A Star Wars Story as well as various tv shows. One of the major problems with the sequel trilogy was that there was no story arc for the three films, suggesting that the whole project wasn’t as thought out as it should have been.

Rogue One & Solo

Many Star Wars fans cite Rogue One as the best of the Disney era films or even the best outside the original trilogy. The story of how the Rebel Alliance came by the Death Star plans could simply have been fan service but the film was a triumph of storytelling and character (with another great droid added to the saga with K2), the only major criticisms I’ve seen of the film are that with it being a prequel there is a lack of jeopardy and using CGI to insert dead actors into it.

Solo was a lot less successful with many fans being disappointed. The change in directors from Phil Lord and Chris Miller to Ron Howard was a bad sign and many didn’t like the actors portraying the major characters. I was disappointed when I first saw Solo but on subsequent viewings I’ve enjoyed it a lot more, seeing it as an enjoyable heist film.

Star Wars has had some big successes on television – The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian have received very positive responses from both fans and critics. Obi-Wan Kenobi was popular (I loved it).

One of the major questions with new Star Wars projects is whether they should focus on existing characters and ideas, or make new characters and ideas. And there is no way for Disney to win. Fans complained about portrayals of Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker when existing characters were used, and when a project uses completely new characters fans complained that they missed the old characters.

Looking at what the next film/trilogy/tv series/bi-monthly box of curated snacks Star Wars takes on there is the question of when it is set. In both the canon established in the films and the huge amount of books, comics, and video games that exist there are literally thousands of years of pre-A New Hope history and stories set after the original trilogy. The period of the High Republic is a fertile ground for ideas, being the period of the Jedi at the height of their power. Personally, I like to see smaller-stakes stories moving away from the main characters, the Star Wars galaxy is huge and providing the bad guys aren’t planning to blow up planets there are very few constraints in terms of canon-Star Wars. There are different nations, hundreds of alien species, crime syndicates, cults, sinister secret organisations, and an almost limitless amount of stories.

Should It Be A Film Or Series?

Something I’ve stated many times but everything needs to be about what serves the story. If a story works better as a film, make it a film, if a story works better as a miniseries, make it a miniseries. Outside of Star Wars, the movie World War Z is a classic example of where a mistake was made on whether it should be a film or tv show, the book is a series of interviews with people who survived the zombie apocalypse, essentially each interview a separate little story. It takes in two dozen countries and characters with no connection to each other – it should have been a tv show but we got a film that tried to push this into less than two hours. The Book of Boba Fett may have been better done as a film as while I enjoyed that series it didn’t always feel there was enough there to sustain so many episodes.

Whatever happens next in Star Wars it is guaranteed an audience and in my opinion, if they want to be continuously making new shows and films they need to try new things and moving away from trilogies will allow them to do that.

Also Read: Iconic Scenes: Star Wars: The Last Jedi – “The Kylo Ren & Luke Skywalker Confrontation”

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But what about films that fall in the middle? After all, not every director can get hundreds of millions to make their film. When studios have to decide between one small film or a whole season of television, the series seems like much better value for that money. So could this be the end of mid-budget films?

The Mid-Budget Movie

A mid-budget film can often be hard to define. As things like inflation and marketing costs can make them hard to determine. While there is no hard rule for what counts as mid-budget, it’s usually something around $5 million to $50 million. The lower range of these tends to be debut indies, films like American Psycho, 28 Days Later, The Blair Witch Project and Christopher Nolan’s Memento all had budgets of under $10 million.

At the upper end of this scale, can be a whole range of things. Many low-brow comedies and rom-coms are often hugely profitable. With most of the budget being spent on the cast and a few set pieces, such as The Hangover, Bridesmaids, Zombieland and 21 Jump Street.

Other films that made in this range are often thrillers, often with a big name attached or a simple hook, a lot of mid-budget sci-fi tends to do well at the box office, with films like Seven, Looper, District 9 and Limitless being good examples. There are also occasional adaptations of books, however, these tend not to be franchises. Some Oscar contenders and winners have been produced with less than $50 million, including The Help, Straight Outta Compton, American Hustle and Bridge of Spies.

The Rise of High-End TV

It’s a common complaint that most of the big films that come out are franchise films. Whether a sequel, prequel, spin-off, or a reboot, it seems rare that a totally original film makes an impact. Because audiences are familiar with the Avengers or Fast and Furious franchises (Understandably so, they’re great), they are a safer bet for a studio. If they have the option of investing $30 million into a one-off thriller, like Seven, and making $80 million, or investing $200 million in the next Bond and making a billion, the latter usually wins.

At the same time, shows like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos have proven that viewers enjoy those types of stories. Not only is a season of a tv show cheaper (Breaking Bad cost around $3 million per episode at its peak), but it also builds a larger audience the longer it goes. When a show is released weekly, like Game of Thrones or The Mandalorian it becomes a talking point every week.

For creators, writers often have much more say in TV, rather than film. Matthew Weiner had total freedom on Mad Men, and that story could not have been told in the span of one film. The Streaming Wars seem to be focused on series rather than films, with Netflix investing in shows such as The Crown, Stranger Things and The Witcher, for its biggest numbers. This in turn has left other studios trying to catch up. Disney recently announced that two of its biggest franchises, The MCU and Star Wars, were both going to be focused on TV for the foreseeable future.

Are Mid Budget Movies Dead?

While it certainly seems that a lot of things are heading towards TV, it doesn’t seem like it’s over yet. Spielberg has relaunched Amblin Entertainment, which almost exclusively focuses on these types of films, and has found success. Recent films from established, indie directors that have found success often occupy this space, such as Taika Waiti with JoJo Rabbit.

Some of the genres mentioned previously simply don’t need a huge budget to be profitable, such as comedies, and films like the upcoming The Little Things are telling stories like True Detective on the big screen. Crime films especially seem to do exceptionally well in this range, with the recent Knives Out and Murder On The Orient Express proving surprise hits. Likewise, many Oscar contenders are often made for a more modest budget, so while the future might be changing, it doesn’t look like these mid-budget successes are going anywhere just quite yet.

Also Read: Fast & Furious: The Making of a Billion Dollar Franchise

Read More: The Mandalorian – A New Hope For Star Wars

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The Mandalorian

The show stars Pedro Pascal as the titular character, an exceptionally good bounty hunter always hidden behind his near priceless Mandalorian armour. The character’s bounty hunter code is challenged when sent after a morally difficult target and he chooses to do the right thing. The show is set in between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens and is heavily focused on the chaos that follows the death of the Emperor.

The Golden Age Of Television

There was a time when film was the perceived cultural superior to television but in the last twenty years things have changed – this is the Golden Age of television. Film and television can tell stories in different ways – in my opinion, Goodfellas and The Sopranos are the high-points of the portrayal of gangsters in their respective mediums but have different strengths and weaknesses. The Mandalorian has a main story arc but within that are numerous smaller stories, characters who get to shine in a particular episode. It often felt with the Star Wars films you are getting a glimpse of a huge universe, whilst and TV shows can go into depth.

One benefit to doing a TV show over another film trilogy would be that a film trilogy would inevitably feel it had to be about saving the galaxy and with some even bigger ultimate weapon. The Mandalorian is about saving one child and a smaller story can actually be more engaging.

The Trouble With Trilogies

I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about a film as I was about The Phantom Menace and like many, I convinced myself it wasn’t that bad, but that couldn’t last. The prequels were a disaster with a few redeeming features – there are many, many problems with them ranging from casting to too much CGI to just being boring. The text crawl at the start of The Phantom Menace talks about tax disputes and while I do think a movie could be made about war sparking from something that dull The Phantom Menace failed.

It’s hard to even discuss the sequel trilogy without being overwhelmed complaints of the fans – they’re too much like the original trilogy, they’re too different to the original trilogy, Rey is a Mary-Sue, they ruined Luke, and then there’s the torrent of sexism that was also present in much of the criticism. For what it’s worth I think the sequels have problems but are much better than the prequels. The Last Jedi is an uneven film yet it has amazing parts to it – Luke and Kylo Ren’s confrontation is incredibly well done and a brilliant way to deal with their history. The biggest problem might have been it felt that the different directors had different ideas of what they wanted to do.

The Star Wars Universe

There is a wealth of material for more television shows. Aside from the films, there are a variety of TV shows, dozens of books, graphic novels, computer games and more:

The Old Republic – The Empire overthrew the Galactic Republic but there would be wars, conflict and interesting stories throughout this period. It could explore the time when the Jedi were at the height of their power.

It’s not all about the war – There’s a lot more going than just the civil war between the Empire and Rebel Alliance – there are bounty hunter guilds, crime syndicates, strange religions and more.

So Many Characters – There are a wealth of interesting existing characters. What about Chewbacca’s life before Han? Or ace rebel pilot Wedge Antilles – the only pilot to have fought in both Death Star battles? I was genuinely thrilled when Nien Nunb (pictured above) turned up in the sequels – for those who don’t know Nunb is the small alien who co-piloted the Millennium Falcon with Lando Calrissian in Return of the Jedi and would love to see more of him. If they’re willing to embrace the Dark Side, Disney could explore Darth Vader’s war against the Jedi.

Whatever happens next we all know Disney aren’t going to stop making Star Wars films and tv shows – let’s just hope they’re worthy additions.

Also Read: Was It Really That Bad?: Star Wars Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker

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