James Mangold Aiming to Start Writing His ‘Star Wars’ Film in the Fall
A small update on James Mangold’s schedule for his upcoming Star Wars film may have been provided. The filmmaker was announced at Star Wars Celebration to be writing and directing a film set during the Dawn of the Jedi era, following his collaboration with Lucasfilm on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
During the most recent episode of The Hot Mic, industry reporter Jeff Sneider was talking about Mangold’s upcoming schedule when discussing his involvement with DC Studios’ Swamp Thing. The Logan director has also been attached for a few years to direct a Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet; with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny due out this month, Mangold will finally be shooting that in July. According to Sneider, filming would then wrap in August and Mangold should move on to start writing his Star Wars movie in October — as long as the strike has ended by then. Mangold is not a member of the WGA, but said at the Cannes Film Festival he supports the writers and will likely not work on any scripts in solidarity with them.
Trying to figure out the production schedule for all future Star Wars films has turned out to be more complicated than we once thought. Steven Knight was supposed to turn in his script by the end of May before the stoppage was announced. Given the strike, that deadline has probably been extended until further notice. Before the strike, the film from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was targeting a December 2025 release date. That is no longer guaranteed as a result of the delays.
A story by The Hollywood Reporter in April said that Lucasfilm intends to release the Dave Filoni-directed theatrical film one year after Obaid-Chinoy’s, which would put us right into 2026 at the earliest. The status of that script, as with most things in the MandoVerse, is completely unknown. If the stars aligned (or didn’t, from a certain point of view) we could even see it before Obaid-Chinoy’s.
Mangold’s film has consistently been the most mysterious one. Since the writer-director was attached to directing the Bob Dylan biopic before moving on to Star Wars, it was believed that we wouldn’t see his take on a galaxy far, far away for a few years. However, looking at his past endeavors, we can see that he is quite an efficient creative — his Ford v Ferrari was put together in two years, from page one of the script to release. He jumped on board Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in early 2020 amid a creative overhaul of the film, and by late May 2021, cameras were already rolling. This means that, if everything goes according to plan, pre-production on his film could begin by early 2025 and potentially target a 2027 release.
Of course, nothing in this story is guaranteed, and the combination of a Lucasfilm production with a writers’ strike could be enough to nuke every project that is in any sort of development. However, we remain optimistic about the schedule and continue to hope the three films announced in London will finally be the ones that bring Star Wars back to the big screen.
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.
