Star Wars’ troubled film slate is getting another shake up. There have been a few changes in the galaxy far far away, according to a report from Variety, including the shelving of Kevin Feige’s mystery Star Wars movie and Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron. But not every Star Wars movie is on hold. At least a couple are still in development.
The two that are, at least nominally, still on track are Taika Waiti’s project, which he’ll supposedly star in, and maybe even Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy, which went dark after the somewhat complicated reaction to 2017’s The Last Jedi — the sequel trilogy film Johnson directed.
Patty Jenkins’ film was supposed to be the next on the Disney release calendar, originally slated for release in December 2023 until it was pushed back indefinitely back in September. So the next Star Wars movie in line should be Taika Waititi’s, but there’s been no real word on that film’s progress since it was announced in 2020. But with news that the film is still in thew works, it does seem possible that it could still be the next theatrical trip to the stars the franchise gets.
As for the even more mysterious movies in the Star Wars lineup, it seems that Kevin Feige’s project, which had no script or director yet, has also been shelved, Variety reports. Feige’s Star Wars project was first announced in 2019, and was alive as late as last year, but it seems it has bitten the dust in the meantime.
As for Rian Johnson, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy says that the company still wants to work with him, but he’s still working on Knives Out sequels and Poker Face for the moment, which could keep him busy.
This still leaves some big questions on the Star Wars calendar long-term. As of now, the next Star Wars release date that Disney has pegged is December 2025, which technically any movie could fit into, even the first film in Rian Johnson’s trilogy that’s apparently still in the works.
It seems most likely at this point that Waititi’s Star Wars film will fill the 2025 window, but that still makes a six-year gap between 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker and the next Star Wars film. While Disney has kept that gap consistently filled with a full stack of streaming series, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Star Wars is a big screen franchise at heart, albeit one that can’t find its way to the theater.