This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Latest ‘New Jedi Order’ Movie News, Plus New ‘Star Wars’ Rumors Breakdown
Happy Oscars Sunday, everyone! Welcome to a special edition of “This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away” which I was able to finish in between Oscar ad breaks. These past few weeks have felt like a lot of waiting around for Star Wars, as we’re all waiting for Lucasfilm to finally make some announcements on The Acolyte. I accurately predicted last week a cover reveal by Empire Magazine, but failed to see that it’d be about Furiosa, and not the Leslye Headland show like I’d hoped.
I’ve been slightly disconnected all week trying to get some stuff at work done, and it took me a few days to finally watch The Bad Batch. That was pretty good, again! I didn’t think I’d be enjoying this season as much as I am. It definitely feels like they took everyone’s notes on speeding up the pace of the story and having episodes that actually feel relevant. Keep it up! (Check out Jay’s review here and SWNN Live!‘s discussion on it here.)
Star Wars aside, I’m doing weekly episodic reviews of FX’s Shōgun on our sister site, MovieNewsNet.com. I also reviewed the Netflix series Supersex and The Gentlemen, as well as everyone’s new film obsession, Dune: Part Two — which turned out to be more relevant than we thought for The Bad Batch. Now, let’s get on with it.
Three Things That May Have Flown Casual
- Still happening… Bit Reactor continues to work on its strategy Star Wars game, the video game developer confirmed. Star Tours also confirmed that, as planned, they will be adding content from the Disney Plus Star Wars library, specifically The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Andor, starting April 5.
- Publishing announcements: A lot of High Republic news this week. First, a new audiobook titled Tempest Breaker has been confirmed from Lucasfilm Publishing and author Cavan Scott. Comes out in December. We also published an exclusive preview of The High Republic Adventures #4. And make sure to check out Tyler’s review for Defy the Storm and Josh’s review of Star Wars #44. Last but not least, The Princess and the Scoundrel, which our publishing staff raves about, is getting a picture book adaptation.
- New toy releases: Major toy announcements this week, as Hot Toys announced figures for Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, coming early next year. We also have a new 1:1 Grogu figure now available!
Star Wars Quote of the Week
“We’ll see how the time goes. I have the time I need to finish this concerto, and I will begin to have some free time later this year. If there’s an opportunity there that I think I can fill and enjoy doing with people I will enjoy, I see no reason not to do it.”
That was John Williams in a new profile interview with Variety, when asked if he’d come back to score another Star Wars movie. Though we’d all written him off after The Force Awakens, the maestro came back to do the other two movies in the trilogy out of love for the character of Rey. After that, he surprised us two more times with a small return, when he composed the main themes for both Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Could he be scoring the New Jedi Order film?
For now, I doubt it. I’m pretty sure Ludwig will be composing The Mandalorian & Grogu, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s project seems a lot more like Williams’ thing. Lucasfilm will obviously want his name attached to it if possible, but as Williams, at 92, do you want to score the first movie in what will likely be a new series of projects, if you probably won’t be around for all of them? (Knock on wood he’s with us for many more years, but let’s be realistic here.) But he does have a special relationship with Daisy Ridley, so I’m not counting him out entirely yet.
Williams will be representing Lucasfilm at the Academy Awards tonight, with a nomination for his work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The odds-on favorite, though, is another Star Wars composer — Ludwig Göransson for Oppenheimer, which is posed to sweep.
Speaking of the Star Wars: New Jedi Order Movie…
Daisy Ridley has been making the press rounds this weekend to promote her new movie Magpie, which just premiered at South By Southwest (and is looking for a distributor!) Naturally, she’s been asked a ton about Star Wars, and though we’ll be covering most of her quotes in a new piece coming out on Monday, I’d highlight a couple things.
First, she told Collider that she hasn’t read a script yet. This is a bit surprising to me, and will probably put to bed my speculation that she’ll be a producer on the project, but it’s not exactly a red flag. The actress has been busy for the past few months, shooting Martin Campbell’s Cleaner, promoting Sometimes I Think About Dying, flying off to Australia to shoot We Bury the Dead, which she started in February, and now getting over to Austin to promote Magpie at SXSW. I assume she’ll then go back to the Southern Hemisphere to wrap the former film, and then start promoting her next venture, the Disney-distributed movie Young Woman and the Sea, which comes out in late May and which just premiered its first handful of pictures.
These past six months have been hectic for her, but as she told Variety recently, that wasn’t exactly the case right after wrapping The Rise of Skywalker: “There weren’t that many offers coming in. It’s not that there wasn’t any… I remember finishing and thinking, ‘Oh, it’s quiet and strange.'” That has shifted now. Some of those opportunities she made happen herself, while others appeared naturally. But the tides are shifting now, and she’s even making money hand over fist on the New Jedi Order film, if a recent Jeff Sneider report is to be believed. (Plus, the actress has shown interest in doing a musical and has hinted at a rom-com — what do I have to do to make both of those things happen?)
I’ve been telling you for a while that said project should go up this fall, or early next year by the latest, and Ridley confirmed as much to Collider. Lucasfilm’s focus is currently on The Mandalorian & Grogu, but that doesn’t mean they’ve put this one aside. As I’ve been saying for a while, the idea was to start casting this project around March, which is basically what they’re doing, according to insider Daniel Richtman. He posted this week on his Patreon that the film’s looking for actors to play Rey’s two apprentices, as well as the villain of the film. Notice they can do this without a finished script yet, though I expect pre-production to start in full swing in the coming weeks. I give it two months before we get a casting story on The Hollywood Reporter about this movie.
Little is known about the story for now, but Ridley did reveal what not to expect: children for Rey. Admittedly, the story can change over time, and she did say that she hasn’t heard anything about the movie other than what was announced last year. I don’t buy that for a second, though, and I don’t think she’d be remotely allowed to say this unless Rey was definitively not going to have any children. I guess those rumors about her having Finn’s kids are not true!
A Trailer for The Acolyte Is Imminent
Okay, I was wrong about the possibility of a trailer on March 5, which was this past Tuesday and is supposed to be three months to the day before June 5, which is when Collider reported the show would be coming out. But we do know something is cooking. Daniel Richtman, once again, shared on Patreon that the first trailer for the show will hit this month. And mysteriously, an official Twitter account for the show went live over the past few days.
All of this points to some official announcement coming over the next couple of weeks, in my eyes. The promotional material is also ramping up. Amandla Stenberg was recently the focus of a magazine profile interview (granted, it was fashion-related, but she was still asked about Star Wars), and Leslye Headland had a similar story published by Backstory. She told the publication:
“Setting it at the end of The High Republic gave me an opportunity to look at a part of Star Wars we’ve never seen, which to me seemed like a great canvas to paint on. That to me felt like a time period I was most interested int. How did the Senate and the Jedi get to where they are in The Phantom Menace, [and] what happens and how do the Jedi behave differently at the end of the High Republic when they have so much power?
It’s unexplored, and not being able to rely on certain signifiers and sort of starting from scratch in a way was really fun, too. But then all the great stuff that makes Star Wars what it is is still there. I’m so proud of it, and it’s a world I deeply, deeply love and feel absolutely honored to be a part of.”
Richtman also said on Patreon that the show has assembled a writers’ room for season 2, which makes complete sense given what we know about how the show was put together. Striking while the iron is hot makes complete sense for this show, which I predict to be huge for Disney Plus this summer. Will they be able to start shooting season 2 this year? I certainly hope so. Kinda related, Richtman said that Ahsoka season 2 could be filming as soon as Q4 this year, which seems a bit rushed but doable if Dave Filoni will not be heavily involved with The Mandalorian & Grogu and New Jedi Order. (Speaking of Ahsoka, the first season was just nominated for five Critics Choice Super Awards.)
Last but not least on the live-action series department, we got confirmation this week that Dane DiLiegro is a part of Skeleton Crew, which I guess I’d missed (I have also found no record of a previous announcement) because The Direct asked about it on the red carpet of Imaginary. The actor confessed to having no idea when the series is coming out but speculated on around Thanksgiving. That lines up!
Jocasta Nu’s Reading List
- SWNN: To celebrate World Book Day, we published the latest edition of our recurring segment, SWNN Roundtable. Members of our staff pitched in with their first Star Wars book they ever read.
- SWNN: Special mention of a second piece of ours, as we reposted on social media a feature from a year ago where Rosalie celebrated the women in Star Wars for International Women’s Day.
- CBR: Robert Vaux explains why Attack of the Clones is the most underrated Star Wars movie. I don’t entirely agree with most of the points made, though if it’s my lowest-rated, I guess it’s the most underrated by definition? Fun read, though!
- Screen Rant: Breanna Tauschek theorizes about New Jedi Order‘s possible radical lightsaber change, and why George Lucas could love it.
What did you think of the latest edition of “This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away”? Let me know your thoughts and suggestions down below in the comment section. You can also send them, or reach out with any information tips, directly via our Contact page.
Have a great week!
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.
