Star Wars: Rogue Squadron: Patty Jenkins Comments on Becoming First Woman to Direct a Star Wars Movie

Patty Jenkins will make franchise history as the first woman to direct a Star Wars movie. She’s helming Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, a film set in the Star Wars’ future setting. She’s deep in development on the film, which tells a new story instead of adapting any previous Rogue Squadron stories. Speaking to Yahoo, Jenkins says a certain extra expectation comes with directing Star Wars given its massive fanbase. “I feel a huge amount of pressure to make a great Star Wars film, of course. The fan base is amazing and massive and that’s no small task. That’s really what I think about,” Jenkins says.

“If I can be in a groundbreaking position to pave the way for other people, that’s amazing. I hope that I get to do that,” she continues. “But luckily [Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984] were not no pressure, either. So I’ve gotten pretty used to the fact that there’s really nothing you can do about it. You just have to try to make a great film and really be diligent about keeping your eye on the ball and always making sure you’re thinking about everything. So I will carry forward and try to make a great movie.”

She also discussed how Lucasfilm offering Rogue Squadron allowed her the opportunity to finally make the fighter pilot movie she’s dreamt of since she was a child. “What happened was [Lucasfilm] just approached me and [asked] would I ever be interested and I said it would really depend on what the story was,” Jenkins said. “I just always want to make sure that I feel I can make an amazing movie. And when they said Rogue Squadron I almost gasped. Because I couldn’t believe that they were so wise to know and somehow intuit that that’s exactly what I’ve been dying to do for so long because of my past and growing up around fighter pilots. It really is a movie I’ve been dying to make. I spent years trying to make a movie about Chuck Yeager. So this is just a huge honor to get to take this on.”

Rogue Squadron is the Rebel Alliance flight squad led by Luke Skywalker and, later in the old Expanded Universe, Wedge Antilles. They were the protagonists of a series of popular air combat video games and a series of books and comics.

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron opens in theaters on December 25, 2023.