We’re now five years removed from “Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.” While there have been plenty of new “Star Wars” television shows on Disney+ — some of them even stellar — there’s still no clear answer to what Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm want to do with the film arm of the massive franchise.
This week, the latest writer looking to bring the films back to the big screen is Simon Kinberg, the writer behind many of the X-Men movies. No one knows what those movies are going to be about just yet either, or when they could come out.
But the questions about where this franchise is going next have been percolating for years, to the point that we’ve bemoaned its lack of direction and lost potential on several occasions. “The Rise of Skywalker,” of course, was already the product of whiplash to fan reaction and backlash to “The Last Jedi,” with Colin Trevorrow’s project for “Episode IX” never materializing and instead reverting back to J.J. Abrams.
As it stands right now, the next “Star Wars” movie to hit the big screen will be “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” an extension of Disney+’s most successful series, “The Mandalorian,” which will arrive in theaters May 2026.
Beyond that project, however, there’s still a lot of uncertainty and a lot of movies that are likely just never happening. Here’s the timeline of each one that’s come and gone since “The Rise of Skywalker.”
September 2019: “Star Wars” is big, but even bigger is Marvel. In 2019, Marvel had just released the biggest film of all time in “Avengers: Endgame,” so Disney naturally looked to Marvel chief Kevin Feige to come up with his own vision for the future of “Star Wars.” At this point, Feige’s project, whatever it would be, would exist alongside a trilogy from “The Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson and another trilogy from “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who had been tapped to develop their own “Star Wars” movies back in February 2018 when “Star Wars” and “Thrones” were both riding high. Excitement is so high for what Feige could do for the brand, it sparks rumors about Brie Larson somehow being cast as the next Jedi warrior.
October 2019: Before “The Rise of Skywalker” even hits theaters, there’s suddenly a disturbance in the Force. Benioff and Weiss exit their projects, saying that while they love everything “Star Wars,” their schedule was full. Their trilogy of movies were intended to go beyond the Skywalker Saga and at that point were slated for 2022 and beyond.
February 2020: Lucasfilm courts J.D. Dillard (“Sleight”) and Matt Owens (“Luke Cage”) to develop a new feature, but details are slim, especially for two more indie, unknown commodities. There’s some speculation that a film could be destined for Disney+. At this point, however, Disney has two untitled “Star Wars” movies carved out as placeholders on the theatrical release calendar for December 2022, ’24, and ’26.
Around that same time, CEO Bob Iger says that “Star Wars” on television would be the “priority” for the “next few years.” Boy, does he turn out to be right.
May 2020: Months after the opening of “The Rise of Skywalker,” Taika Waititi is confirmed to be directing a “Star Wars” film, which he would be writing with “1917” screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns. He had first been rumored in January while “Skywalker” was still in theaters, but after directing early episodes of “The Mandalorian” and coming off the success of “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Jojo Rabbit,” he seemed like an ideal fit.
August 2020: Kathleen Kennedy, in an interview with TheWrap on behalf of “The Mandalorian,” says that after completing the Skywalker Saga, Lucasfilm is “stepping back” to figure out where they want to go next.
“We just need the time to step back and really absorb what George has created, and then start to think about where things might go,” she said. “That’s what we’ve been doing, and we’ve been having a great deal of fun doing it, and meeting with lots of different filmmakers and talent.”
December 2020: Disney, as part of an investor day, announces its first specific “Star Wars” movie, complete with a title, director, premise, and release date. The film is “Rogue Squadron” and would be directed by “Wonder Woman” filmmaker Patty Jenkins. The project is described as set after “Episode IX” and follows a new generation of “starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy.” Coming to theaters December 2023.
November 2021: Or not. “Rogue Squadron” is delayed (granted, there’s a pandemic going on), but the real reason is that Jenkins, despite the bomb of “Wonder Woman 2,” is still very much in demand and is busy prepping “Wonder Woman 3” and a “Cleopatra” movie.
May 2022: Michael Waldron (“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”) tells Variety he’s working on a “Star Wars” screenplay for Feige and was excited to be writing something that wasn’t a sequel and gave him the freedom to do something new.
September 2022: Rian Johnson says his trilogy of movies are still in development, but he’s tied up with the “Knives Out” movies and says, “It would break my heart if I were finished, if I couldn’t get back in that sandbox at some point.” Just a few months later in December, he says if he doesn’t return “it wouldn’t be the end of the world … but I would be sad.”
October 2022: Another new film is in the works! “Lost” writer Damon Lindelof plots his return to film with his own “Star Wars” film he’s writing and developing, and the film finds a director in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (“Ms. Marvel”). At this point, details are completely secret.
November 2022: And another. Shawn Levy is in early talks this time for his own movie he’ll direct, but no word on a writer or what this project would be.
March 2023: Bad news. Both Jenkins’ “Rogue Squadron” and Feige’s movies are shelved at Lucasfilm. Jenkins in the midst of drama around “Wonder Woman 3” being put to rest, had just said she was still planning “Rogue Squadron” but wasn’t sure if it was happening. Now we learn for sure that the film is no longer in active development. With Feige’s film shelved too, Waldron has been moved to responsibilities on “Avengers: Secret Wars.”
The silver lining is Waititi’s movie, which reports hint could star Waititi himself and could be the next project to finally get under way.
Days later, Lindelof is out as well, as is his co-writer Justin Britt-Gibson, though Obaid-Chinoy remains attached. A month later, he says that he wasn’t just in talks for the project, he had joined the “Star Wars” universe “and was asked to leave.” He even confirmed that the movie would still be happening, just not with him.
April 2023: The “Star Wars” Celebration event in London is here, and Kennedy comes armed with some exciting new announcements. First are details about Obaid-Chinoy’s film, which will bring Daisy Ridley’s Rey back to the franchise and “will tell the story of rebuilding the New Jedi Order and the powers that rise to tear it down.” With Lindelof out, Lucasfilm taps Steven Knight to replace him.
There’s more! Two more films, in fact. One is from James Mangold (“Logan”), and the other is from Dave Filoni (“Asohka”). Mangold’s is set far in the past, looking at how the first Jedi discovered the Force and learned to wield it in an era of chaos and oppression. Filoni’s is set in the relative present, focusing on “the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic” in a way that aims to bring together the many threads of all the different “Star Wars” series.
Kennedy’s presentation doesn’t mention anything about Waititi’s movie or Johnson’s trilogy, but a few days later she assures they’re still talking regularly and the auteurs are still working away.
November 2023: Filoni reveals that he is now Lucasfilm’s Chief Creative Officer mapping out the future of “Star Wars” for both film and television. He’s working alongside Kennedy on the “inception phase” of the new era of projects.
January 2024: Lucasfilm and Disney formally announce “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” directed by Favreau and produced by Favreau, Kennedy, and Filoni, and add that the film is already in production. The announcement says that Pedro Pascal and Sigourney Weaver will star and that it will lead Lucasfilm’s feature slate that also include the projects from Obaid-Chinoy, Mangold, and Filoni. Obaid-Chinoy also speaks out and says it’s “about time” the franchise had a movie directed by a woman.
Daisy Ridley tells IndieWire she’s very excited to rejoin the universe with a “story [that is] for me … very worth telling and very exciting.”
September 2024: Donald Glover says that there’s still a chance he returns to the screen to again portray Lando Calrissian. Glover’s return to “Star Wars” was originally planned as a Disney+ series, but in July 2023, Glover and his brother Stephen Glover took over writing duties and re-imagined the project as a film. Justin Simien had been working on the series but exited, later saying in an interview he only learned through the trades that the project had been shelved.
October 2024: Steven Knight is no longer writing Obaid-Chinoy’s film, likely delaying production until at least late in 2025. Lucasfilm is in talks with writers to replace him.
November 2025: Simon Kinberg sets a deal to write, produce, and develop a new trilogy of movies. Reports differ as to whether the films are a continuation of the Skywalker Saga or focus on new characters.
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