New Report Suggests Shawn Levy’s ‘Star Wars’ Film May Involve Rey
A new report from Jeff Sneider has included a few nuggets from the current state of Star Wars films, including the fact that Rey Skywalker may be a part of Shawn Levy’s movie.
In his latest newsletter, Sneider presented a “notebook dump” on everything he’s been hearing about Star Wars lately. Perhaps the juiciest nugget is that Rey’s return to the big screen might not be just in the New Jedi Order (w/t) project from writer Steven Knight and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Sneider is hearing Shawn Levy’s Star Wars movie “may also involve Rey somehow,” though he didn’t provide any additional details. It should be noted here that Daisy Ridley said she was only pitched the story for one movie when she signed up to return, though added “That’s not to say that that’s all it is.” Could he be directing the sequel to the New Jedi Order movie?
Levy’s name came up because Sneider pitched him as a potential replacement for Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy should Lucasfilm decide to part ways with her in light of recent PR fiascos – though he noted he doesn’t think it will happen. Levy is currently focused on wrapping the untitled Deadpool 3, which debuts this summer. Late last year, Levy lined up another project with Ryan Reynolds at Netflix, and is expected to direct one or two episodes of the last season of Stranger Things.
In any case, everything’s coming up daisies for Ridley, as she is apparently looking at a $12.5M paycheck to reprise her role over a decade after she made her franchise debut – and Sneider ended the portion of the newsletter by hinting that other talent from Star Wars: The Force Awakens could be joining her, enticed by Ridley’s payday. (We’ve previously speculated she might be producing the film on top of starring in it, though that hasn’t been confirmed, but which would raise her salary.)
Sneider also took a moment to address the recent storm of contradictory headlines tied to the New Jedi Order film. For starters, he reiterated what we heard about Knight’s writing proceeding business as usual. He claimed that despite reports, development on the film is not “delayed indefinitely”, and that development on it is well underway. Lucasfilm themselves had denied the report of the project having a tumultuous development process, and they outright confirmed that writer Steven Knight would remain on the project, as he is expected to turn in a new draft of his screenplay in the near future.
Then there’s the issue of scheduling. While he didn’t claim to have any insight into it, he provided an educated guess based on what he’s been hearing, which is sort of what we all have been speculating anyway. First, remember that Disney and Lucasfilm currently have Star Wars release dates reserved for May 22, 2026, December 18, 2026, and December 17, 2027.
The recently-announced The Mandalorian & Grogu film has been confirmed to be the first new film that will release after Lucasfilm’s self-imposed theatrical hiatus. Sneider speculates that based on existing production schedules, the former 2026 date will most likely go to the big-screen debut of the bounty hunter and his adopted quinquagenarian alien child, while the latter date will show the future of the Star Wars galaxy and how the new Jedi factor into it. Sneider also anticipates that Dave Filoni’s Star Wars movie will arrive in December 2028 to give him time to finish work on the second season of Ahsoka, while James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi story may come as soon as December 2027.
Special thanks to Reddit user GLJSC007 for providing assistance with this piece.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
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.
