‘Star Wars’ Film News Recap From Celebration 2023
The present and future of the Star Wars franchise were the focal point of this past weekend’s Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023, as Lucasfilm unveiled their overall plans for the next few years, though they lacked many specifics. With so much happening over the four-day convention, we thought it would be appropriate to recap some of the major announcements that were made so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. Let us begin by talking about the theatrical side of the franchise.
The convention opened on Friday, April 7, with the big panel of the weekend, Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase, which was wrapped with the announcement of three new feature films that are in early development at the studio. It’s important to note, though, that none of them were given a release date (Lucasfilm may be shying away from that for now, though they definitely have release dates they are targeting internally). However, perhaps the best film news of the weekend came out of an interview with Kathleen Kennedy, who said that all of the upcoming movies will include the classic opening crawl, which was missing from Rogue One, and to a certain extent, from Solo.
In the panel, Kennedy started by displaying an overall timeline of the Star Wars saga, including all the eras we know of so far. While there weren’t projects announced for each of the eras, this allows us to organize and classify each of the upcoming projects. They are:
- Dawn of the Jedi
- The Old Republic
- The High Republic
- Fall of the Jedi
- Reign of the Empire
- Age of Rebellion
- The New Republic
- Rise of the First Order
- New Jedi Order
Notice how this is very broad-strokes so far, and as the overall Star Wars story continues to develop, the timeline might be updated — after all, the first three items cover around 25,000 years, while the next five span less than 100 years. The real news here is the first and last items, which serve as inspiration for two of the three feature films announced, and also put the entire focus of the overall Star Wars story on the Jedi and the Force. Let’s take a closer look at each of the projects.
Daisy Ridley is coming back as Rey in a film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
This is a project that has been in development for over a year, and which first had Watchmen‘s Damon Lindelof attached as co-writer and main driving force behind it. Lindelof departed the project earlier this year, per reports, after handing over the first full draft of the script. According to Variety, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has taken over from him and co-writer Justin Britt-Gibson as the main scribe.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who directed episodes 4 and 5 of Disney Plus’ Ms. Marvel, was hired last summer to helm the feature, though the announcement in London was the first time Lucasfilm officially acknowledged this. We also knew from reports that the film would take place after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, but a bit more was confirmed on Friday.
Kathleen Kennedy described the project as the story of how the Jedi Order was rebuilt after the Battle of Exegol. And to do that, they would need a main Jedi to spearhead the effort, at which point they called into the stage none other than Daisy Ridley, who was announced to be reprising the role of Rey Skywalker in the upcoming feature, which will take place 15 years after the Battle of Exegol. The crowd lost their mind. This is the official description of the project, courtesy of Lucasfilm:
Star Wars will head into the future, with a new film directed by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy set 15 years after the last events of the Skywalker Saga. The film will star Daisy Ridley reprising her beloved role as Rey and tells the story of rebuilding the New Jedi Order and the powers that rise to tear it down.
No official title has been given yet, but Kathleen Kennedy confirmed in an interview later that the script was six weeks away from being completed, which positions it as a likely contender to take the December 19, 2025, slot that Disney reserved years ago for a Star Wars film. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed as much in a recent story.
According to Above the Line, the film will be shooting next February, but who knows when we’ll get more news about it. Since Star Wars doesn’t typically do San Diego Comic-Con, and the next D23 is not until the fall of 2024, we might get official updates via press releases or shareholder meetings in the coming months. Or even beyond that — the titles of all sequel trilogy films were kept under wraps until they were deep into post-production, and Solo revealed its title on the day the film wrapped shooting.
Dave Filoni is directing a feature film that will culminate the “MandoVerse” storylines
On December 10, 2020, Kathleen Kennedy announced that The Mandalorian and its spin-off shows would one day culminate into a climactic event. However, two years passed and, despite some plans being rearranged along the way (mainly axing the once-announced Rangers of the New Republic and fast-tracking Jon Watts’ Skeleton Crew), not much else has been said about it. Dave Filoni was asked in a recent interview about it, and essentially confirmed it was still a thing. If only the interviewer knew at the time…
Filoni was announced on Friday to be given his own film after creating, guiding, and serving as a director on beloved animated series like Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, and then transitioning into live-action by acting as a writer, exec. producer, and director on The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, as well as the forthcoming Ahsoka series, which he single-handedly wrote and directed multiple episodes of. The Ahsoka trailer confirmed once again that this overarching storyline is leading into a loose adaptation of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, which might very well be the title of the film. Here is the official description of the film:
“Expanding upon Star Wars storytelling in the present, Dave Filoni will orchestrate the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic. Alongside producer Jon Favreau, they will bring together many of the threads of the Star Wars original series in a cinematic event.”
Filoni has been climbing up the ladder for a long time, and this was a years-in-the-making announcement, so congratulations to him on the patience and the tremendous effort he’s put into it. No additional details have been revealed yet, as the company probably doesn’t want to spoil the end of The Mandalorian season 3 and/or Ahsoka. The Hollywood Reporter noted in the story mentioned earlier that the film is internally targeting a 2026 release. Whatever this means for future seasons of The Mandalorian or its spin-off shows, we don’t know. A fourth Mandalorian season could go into production this year, and a second season of Ahsoka was hinted at by Rosario Dawson.
James Mangold is directing a movie about the Dawn of the Jedi
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day for those of us who have been keeping up with Star Wars news over the past few years was the announcement of James Mangold as the director of a new feature film (he later confirmed he’s writing it as well). Mangold’s name has been attached to Star Wars in the past, with The Hollywood Reporter saying back in 2018 that he would be directing a Boba Fett spin-off film, and he was at one point rumored to have directed at least parts of an episode of The Mandalorian season 2. While both reports have been debunked over the years, it looks like he finally landed a film in the Star Wars franchise.
However, his name didn’t come out entirely out of the blue, and it makes sense that this was the project that was kept under wraps, as he’s been working for Lucasfilm on another film for three years, the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (which also premiered a new trailer at the convention). It seems like he and Kennedy had a great time working together, and they wanted to continue doing so. He apparently pitched to her a movie about the first Force user, which he described as The Ten Commandments meets Ben-Hur. No title has been given yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it had the same as the era it will be set in: Dawn of the Jedi. Here is the official description for it:
“James Mangold will take audiences deep into the past, telling the tale of the first Jedi to wield the Force and harness it as a liberating power in an era of chaos and oppression.”
No release of production window was given for Mangold’s film, but we can safely assume it will not make it to theaters in 2025. On the one hand, Mangold has been busy with Indiana Jones over the past few months, so the script is far from being ready, and on the other, he also has a collaboration with DC Studios in the works, as he confirmed over the weekend he will be directing Swamp Thing for the James Gunn-Peter Safran studio. He is also supposed to shoot his Bob Dylan biopic this summer.
We have a few exciting years of Star Wars content ahead of us, and hopefully, this time Lucasfilm will actually be able to stick to the plan they have announced. No word was said about Taika Waititi or Shawn Levy’s films — Levy is currently deep into pre-production of Deadpool 3, so his film is still years away, while Waititi has been actively developing his Akira film for the past few months. Neither one is dead, though, but it seems like Lucasfilm wanted the three projects above to be announced first.
Whether they will be the first three to come out or simply the three Lucasfilm felt more confident about, we don’t know. But stay tuned, as the best is certainly yet to come.
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.
