James Mangold's Star Wars Movie Centers On the First Jedi

By Russ Burlingame

Star Wars may already have staked out the story of The Last Jedi, but it sounds like Logan and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director James Mangold is set to take the franchise in the opposite direction. Today during Star Wars Celebration Europe in London, Lucasfilm announced that Mangold will officially be helming a Star Wars feature film, confirming rumors that have been circulating for some time. Specifically, fans learned that Mangold is set to direct a movie about "the first Jedi in the earliest past."

That likely means that Mangold will be providing fans with a look into the foundations of the Jedi religion, which have been hinted at in previous films but never explored in any particular depth. It's also a big shift in expectations for Mangold, who was initially rumored to be writing a Boba Fett spinoff movie. Of course, that was way back in 2018, and in the time since, Lucasfilm publicly disavowed the rumors.

"There really was virtually no previous development. We never got very far with Josh, quite frankly, because we never developed anything specific with him," Kennedy confirmed with Empire Magazine, per Star Wars News Net. "And Jim Mangold never worked on a Boba Fett story."

The announcement comes as part of a quasi-trilogy of movies from high profile directors, all announced today at the panel. Mangold's story joins a film from Dave Filoni, which will wrap up some of the stories that he has set up in the Mandalorian universe as well as his animated projects. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will helm a movie set in the future of the franchise, where Rey is teaching a new generation of Jedi the way of the Force.

Presumably these open doors, as any project that turns out to be a hit can have its own series of sequels and spinoffs, without having much (if any) impact on the other eras that are being developed by other filmmakers. As with Logan, Mangold will be playing in a shared sandbox, but doing so separated by time and space, with stories that are unlikely to change or be changed by other installments.  Of course, it may be hard to get too attached to any news coming out of Star Wars Celebration, since the last few years have seen cancelled projects from Colin Trevorrow, Kevin Feige, Taika Waititi, and Patty Jenkins (and those are just the ones we know about).

Check back throughout the day for lots more updates from Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023.

0comments
Start the Conversation

of