Variety.com are reporting that the Star Wars movies helmed by Kevin Feige and Patty Jenkins have been shelved, whilst Taika Waititi’s film is still in active development and could fill the December 2025 slot.
In December 2020, Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy announced that “Wonder Woman” helmer Patty Jenkins would direct the next “Star Wars” movie, the one-off adventure “Rogue Squadron.” But in September 2022, Disney pulled the title from its scheduled December 2023 release, and sources with knowledge of the production say it is no longer in active development at the studio. (A rep for Lucasfilm did not respond to a request for comment. In December, Jenkins said in a statement that she was still developing “Rogue Squadron,” but “I don’t know if it will happen or not.”)
Meanwhile, Variety has learned that a possible “Star Wars” feature produced by Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige is also no longer in active development at Lucasfilm.
When news of Feige’s involvement with a “Star Wars” film broke in September 2019, it churned up fan speculation, since widely debunked, that he was in line to replace Kennedy as the leader of Lucasfilm. The movie remained alive as recently as May 2022, when screenwriter Michael Waldron (“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”) told Variety that he’d started working on a “Star Wars” screenplay for Feige. “I’m enjoying having the freedom on that to do something that’s not necessarily a sequel or anything,” Waldron said.
Five months later, Feige hired Waldron to write the script for 2026’s “Avengers: Secret Wars,” the “Endgame”-style culmination of Marvel Studios’ Multiverse Saga. Between that project and the 19 other titles (and counting) that Marvel’s announced for theaters and streaming in the next four years, Feige’s responsibilities to the MCU are keeping him far, far away from “Star Wars” for much of the decade.
So what “Star Wars” movie could slot into that open December 2025 release date? Sources say “Thor: Love and Thunder” filmmaker Taika Waititi continues to work on his possible “Star Wars” feature, and he would most likely have a part in it as well, similar in prominence to his standout role as an imaginary Adolf Hitler in his Oscar-winning 2019 feature “Jojo Rabbit.” And although Lucasfilm has yet to officially confirm it, sources say the studio is committed to a “Star Wars” movie from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a two-time Oscar-winning documentarian (“Saving Face,” “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness”), who made her live-action narrative debut with two episodes of 2022’s “Ms. Marvel” for Disney+. Damon Lindelof (“Watchmen”) and Justin Britt-Gibson (“Counterpart”) were attached in October to write the script for that movie.
Let’s see if we get any film related news at Star Wars Celebration Europe in a month’s time.
