‘Star Wars’ News Recap of 2023
2023 is now in our rear-view mirror, and it’s time for everyone to look back at what this year had to offer. We’ve done just that, and considering we’re a site covering Star Wars news, what better way to re-examine our 2023 than to highlight the biggest news headlines of the year? If you’ve been living under a rock, here is a quick recap of what this year gave us in Star Wars movie/TV/video game/publishing news.
Biggest Star Wars Movie News of 2023
It’s interesting to look back one year and realize that a report from December 31 said that Damon Lindelof’s Star Wars movie was targeting an April 2023 shoot in London. How far we’ve come. We now know of six feature films that Lucasfilm is actively working on, and three of them were announced this year.
For starters, the biggest development has been made on the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy-directed film. The two-time Oscar-winning short documentary director stayed on the project after last winter’s creative overhaul, which saw Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson exit as scribes and Peaky Blinders‘ Steven Knight come in. The project the former two were working on was set many decades after The Rise of Skywalker and would have featured an elder Rey; Knight’s version of the script, which should have a finished first draft by now, is set 15 years after that film. Daisy Ridley will return to play Rey, as announced at Star Wars Celebration in London. Filming should begin in the second half of 2024, likely targeting a May 2026 date.
Taika Waititi’s Star Wars film continues its development, but there’s not been a lot of public movement on it. The writer-director was in negotiations with Lucasfilm earlier this year to also play a part in it, but Kathleen Kennedy said they were having some trouble cracking the script. The Oscar-winning writer will be focused on Klara and the Sun next, so we don’t expect his film anytime soon. However, we’ve been assured it’s still in the oven. It’s a similar situation to Shawn Levy, who was confirmed in late 2022 to be working on Star Wars. He’s currently working on Deadpool 3 and could shoot another film before he gets around to doing Star Wars.
The three announced films this year were these: Lando, originally announced as a Disney Plus series but now being reworked into a feature film, with Donald and Stephen Glover behind it; James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi (wt), which will take place 25,000 years before the Skywalker Saga and explore the origins of the Force; and a new feature film from Dave Filoni that will culminate the multiple storylines set in the New Republic era Disney Plus shows. None of them have been dated, and not much else is known about them.
Meanwhile, going negative for a second, films by Kevin Feige and Patty Jenkins have been confirmed to be no longer in the works.
Highlights of 2023’s Star Wars TV News
As with this year’s movies, much of the news surrounding Star Wars TV shows centered around the Hollywood strikes. Yet, 2023 still contained many highly-anticipated series premieres. The Mandalorian season 3 and Ahsoka both premiered this year. And The Bad Batch season 2, Visions season 2, and Young Jedi Adventures (which has not wrapped its first season yet) were also sprinkled in throughout the year as well. However, it’s for the years of 2024 and beyond that we may see just how much of an effect the strikes did have.
At this year’s Star Wars Celebration, we got to see a lot of new trailers for upcoming shows. Ahsoka’s first trailer premiered, alongside a sizzle reel from the upcoming The Acolyte, which was shown only for in-person attendees. We received updates on the second season of Andor alongside a brief glimpse of what the cast was working on. Not to mention an update on Skeleton Crew with another only-in-person trailer that hasn’t officially been posted online. Animation-wise, Lucasfilm also showed off a bit more of The Bad Batch Season 3 and announced a second season of Tales of the Jedi was in the work.
However, it was only a few weeks later that Hollywood would be put on notice and the WGA and the SAG-AFTRA both went on strike. The strike went on for 148 days. While this didn’t affect the TV shows released this year, recent news indicates that the strike did affect Lucasfilm’s TV plans. It’s been confirmed that The Acolyte, The Bad Batch, Tales of the Jedi Season 2, and Skeleton Crew will premiere in 2024.
However, Andor Season 2 has been pushed out of 2024. This is likely a result of Andor’s filming having to be put on hold due to the strikes (the Diego Luna-led series still has a few weeks left of principal photography). Lastly, it should be mentioned that Dave Filoni had been promoted to Chief Creative Officer at Lucasfilm, most likely as a result of the success of Ahsoka. There’s still no confirmation of a second season for Ahsoka.
Video Game News From 2023
In 2023 we had the release of a major Star Wars video game, in Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (sequel to 2019’s Jedi: Fallen Order), which not only was a massive success with critics and fans alike, it also scored multiple nominations at the Game Awards. A third Jedi game has been confirmed by Cameron Monaghan to be in the works. But we also had new developments on several upcoming titles.
The most note-worthy was the announcement of Massive Entertainment’s Star Wars: Outlaws, a new open-world AAA game coming in 2024. Set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the story will follow Kay Vess as she takes on missions from multiple crime syndicates and delivers on them or betrays her employers, depending on the player’s will. We know characters like Jabba the Hutt will appear, and there’s even speculation about Qi’ra being featured.
Looking further ahead, it’s been pretty quiet on the Knights of the Old Republic remake front, with Embracer being tight-lipped about it. Rumor had it that development was iced, but even that was met with some pushback from other members in the video game community. Disney’s Gaming VP wouldn’t confirm nor deny anything besides saying the company is aware of the massive asset they have in their hands.
Bit Reactor reminded us they are working on a Star Wars strategy game, and the long-delayed Star Wars: Hunters mobile game was pushed back once again. Quantic Dream continues to insist progress on Star Wars: Eclipse is coming along nicely, but it doesn’t sound like we’ll be able to play it anytime soon. In addition, the remaster of Dark Forces has been announced for February 28, 2024.
Books and Comics 2023 Overview
The biggest highlight for Star Wars books and comics has been The High Republic publishing initiative. This year saw the end of Phase II of The High Republic and the beginning of Phase III. It ended our love affair with Marda Ro, Axel Greylark, and the prequel characters of Phase II, and brought us back to the dark and foreboding time of Phase III with Marchion Ro, Avar Kriss, and many more. But it also saw The High Republic expanding into farther reaches of the Star Wars universe, venturing into other mediums. Not to mention a slew of other notable books and comics, like Star Wars: Inquisitor – Rise of the Red Blade, and the Dark Droids comic event.
Starting on the comics side, we learned that the current run of Bounty Hunter and Doctor Aphra were both coming to an end. But for next year, Lucasfilm Publishing did announce a slew of new comics including upcoming individual series for Jango Fett and Mace Windu. The High Republic received many notable comics this year including Shadows of Starlight and Phases II and III of The High Republic Adventures. Not to mention several noteworthy non-High Republic comics including Star Wars: Yoda, and many other comics returning to Return of the Jedi for its 40th anniversary.
And on the books side of things, it wasn’t slow either. Just as Phase II of The High Republic was wrapping up with Cataclysm and Path of Vengeance, Lucasfilm Publishing was already outlining its plans for Phase III of The High Republic. Starting with George Mann’s The Eye of Darkness, Phase III of The High Republic will continue into 2025 with Charles Soule capping off the publishing initiative with Trials of the Jedi. Even then, however, there were still many books outside of The High Republic, including Star Wars: Crimson Climb and From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi. The books will continue to roll out as new novels including Star Wars: The Living Force have already been revealed for 2024.
What was the biggest news for you coming out of Star Wars in 2023? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned for more end-of-year pieces coming to StarWarsNewsNet.com really 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.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Jay Goodearl runs the YouTube Gaming channel “Good Games, Dude” His channel aims to open up video games to beginners and immediate players and help them understand what makes games the art form that it is.
