Damon Lindelof Wishes the Best for the Team Taking Over His ‘Star Wars’ Script
It was announced during Star Wars Celebration earlier this month that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will be directing an upcoming feature film that will see Daisy Ridley’s Rey Skywalker return to reform the Jedi Order, in a story set 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker. While no writer was announced, we know from reports that the project suffered from some behind-the-scenes shakeups that involved Damon Lindelof, who had initially set up the project at Lucasfilm, and Justin Britt-Gibson departing as co-writers.
Lindelof is currently promoting his upcoming Peacock series Mrs. Davis, and speaking to Variety, he took the chance to confirm that he’s no longer part of the developing team, but he wishes the best to Obaid-Chinoy and the rest of the people involved with it. He said:
“The movie is still happening, but unfortunately not with me. I wish them all the best of luck. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an incredible director, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with.”
He also added that the script was a “true labor of love”, which throws us back to his quote to /Film shortly before reports about his departure came out. He’d said at the time:
“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 departure was especially troubling because it was him that pitched the idea to Lucasfilm and developed it from scratch, as everything we understand about the project suggests. From reports by Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic podcast, we know that the project was initially packaged at Lucasfilm with the lead actor on board; it’s unclear if he’s still around.
Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson handed in their first draft of the script in February and departed right after. Reading between the lines, it seems clear that both parties involved knew in advance the writers would be leaving the project, so Lucasfilm moved fast to find a replacement. Peaky Blinders‘ Steven Knight, according to reports, stepped in and is now just a few weeks away from turning in a new draft. However, we don’t know if this is a Rise of Skywalker case, where J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio scrapped most of the ideas in the first version of the script by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, or if Knight is simply polishing up what was already there. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, and it will come down to the Writers Guild of America to decide who gets the credit on the film.
It’s also likely, we may add, that Damon Lindelof will retain a producer title on the film as part of his initial deal with Lucasfilm, though we don’t expect him to be creatively involved in any capacity moving forward. There are a lot of unanswered questions around this film, and while Celebration gave us some food for thought, there is so much more we want to know. Is Rey going to be the protagonist, or are other characters going to take the lead, as initial reports suggested? Should we expect more characters from the sequel trilogy to appear? Kathleen Kennedy recently hinted it could happen, though John Boyega sounds pretty definitive about not coming back, and yet, having the New Jedi Order without Finn would be odd given what The Rise of Skywalker had set up. In a recent interview, he did say he was starting to be more comfortable with how the sequel trilogy handled his character, which could be a comment that ages well if he comes back as a Jedi trainee.
Time will tell, and answers will come. For now, it seems like Lucasfilm wants this film out first and is targeting the December 19, 2025, release date that Disney has reserved for the studio. Production is reportedly going to begin in February 2024, but obviously, that will depend on whether the company is happy with the script. Stay tuned for more news.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
