‘Star Wars’ New Jedi Order Film Still Set for April 2024 Shoot Despite Recent Calendar Changes
After Disney announced earlier this week some changes in their release schedule for the next few years, there were some concerns online that Lucasfilm had delayed production on yet another Star Wars movie. Apparently, this was not the case. Disney, for yet-unknown reasons, had to delay Avatar 3 an entire year, putting it into December 2025, which then forced Star Wars to move its untitled release a few months. But they couldn’t do it a full year because they already had another December 2026 release date in mind.
This comes to us from reporter Jeff Sneider, who recently said as much in his and John Rocha’s podcast The Hot Mic. Sneider insisted that Lucasfilm still intends to shoot Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s film, the one set in the New Jedi Order era and starring Daisy Ridley as Rey, in April of next year. (This is a slight variation with respect to the previous month we were hearing, which was February, but it would make sense considering they had to commission a near-page-one rewrite of the script earlier this year.)
We still don’t know that Obaid-Chinoy’s film will be the one targeting the May 2026 release date, but it’s heavily implied. A story in The Hollywood Reporter said that Lucasfilm wanted the New Jedi Order film to mark their return to theaters, adding that the Dave Filoni-directed movie would be targeting a release date one year later (at the time, December 2026). Now, with the writers’ strike halting work on Steven Knight’s script for Obaid-Chinoy’s film, it’s possible that the April production start may be delayed, depending on how long the stoppage lasts.
This could potentially affect Filoni’s movie as well, but that comes from a well-oiled machine that is putting out new seasons of The Mandalorian or spin-off shows at least once a year and already has experience with shooting two separate projects on the same lot. They have also their stories planned way in advance, so even if the script can’t be written at the moment, it will probably not take as long as it will for Steven Knight’s script to be fully polished. So, it looks like the May 2026 date is being reserved for Obaid-Chinoy’s film. However, since they haven’t announced as much there’s always the possibility that they want to return to theaters with the culmination of what first got them out of there, Disney Plus and The Mandalorian. It’s likely we will not be hearing an official confirmation of when each of these is coming out until at least one of them starts to roll cameras.
With an April 2024 shoot, which will likely depend on whether the script is in a good place come the fall, Lucasfilm should start pre-production on Obaid-Chinoy’s film by the end of this year at the latest. That the writers’ strike does not last until September would be imperative for that. Kathleen Kennedy has already spoken out publicly in favor of the writers, and hopefully, Disney and the rest of the studios will be able to reach a deal soon.
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.
