The future of “Star Wars” at the cinema got a little murkier recently as various projects in development were outright scrapped.
Just over a week ago came word that both Patty Jenkins’ “Rogue Squadron” film and a movie that was to be produced by Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige are both effectively dead and no longer in development.
They join “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss’ proposed project which was ditched a few years back. Filmmaker Rian Johnson is still asked about his project and he’s still interested, but his “Knives Out 3” and “Poker Face” Season 2 commitments will keep him busy until well into 2024.
That really leaves only two films standing – the Taika Waititi-directed one, and one from two-time Oscar-winning documentarian Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy which has “Watchmen” and “The Leftovers” showrunner Damon Lindelof attached to co-write.
Lindelof popped up this week at SXSW to promote his new Peacock series “Mrs. Davis” and was asked by Slashfilm about crafting a “Star Wars” movie. He responded with an interesting answer indicating he’s only doing it if it’s exactly right:
“I will just say, that for reasons that I can’t get into on this Sunday morning, on this day, the degree of difficulty is extremely, extremely, extremely high. If it can’t be great, it shouldn’t exist.
That’s all I’ll say, because I have the same association with it as you do, which is, it’s the first movie I saw sitting in my dad’s lap, four years old, May of ’77.
I think it’s possible that sometimes when you hold something in such high reverence and esteem, you start to get in the kitchen and you just go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.’ We’ll just leave it at that point.”
Lindelof’s name has been attached for over a year alongside Justin Britt-Gibson, who is co-writing the film which is rumored to take place after the events of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” but won’t involve the Skywalker storyline.
It’s believed this project, even more than Waititi’s, is the one being earmarked for a potential December 2025 release with something to be announced next month at Star Wars Celebration which takes place in London on the weekend of April 7th.
Meanwhile, Lindelof’s “Mrs. Davis” premieres on Peacock on April 20th.
