Star Wars: Patty Jenkins Cites Writers' Strike as Reason for Rogue Squadron Delays

The filmmaker offers an unexpected update on the seemingly scrapped adventure.

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was announced in December of 2020 and, with its intended release date having come and gone, many fans have assumed the project was scrapped entirely. Filmmaker Patty Jenkins, on the other hand, recently claimed that she owes Lucasfilm a draft of the script and pointed out that one reason there hasn't been significant progress on the project is due to last year's writers' strike. Lucasfilm has a habit of announcing projects long before they have been developed in substantial ways, resulting in those projects being shelved indefinitely, so fans might be surprised to learn that the Star Wars spinoff could be revived at some point.

"When I left Star Wars to do Wonder Woman 3, and I started working on that, we talked about, 'Well, maybe I'll come back to Star Wars after Wonder Woman 3, so we started a deal for that to happen," Jenkins confessed to HBO's Talking Pictures podcast. "When Wonder Woman 3 then went away, Lucasfilm and I were like, 'Oh, we've got to finish this deal.' We finished the deal right as the strike was beginning, so I now owe a draft of Star Wars. So we will see what happens there. Who knows?"

Just over a year ago at Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm announced three new movies it was developing for the franchise, which joined the ever-growing list of movies that were supposedly being developed yet haven't earned promising updates since the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. With Disney having secured a number of release dates for unnamed Star Wars movies, Jenkins expressed her empathy over the challenges the studio currently faces.

"They have a hard job in front of them of, 'What's the first movie they're going to do?'" Jenkins expressed about the situation. "They have other directors who have been working, but I am now back on doing Rogue Squadron. We'll see what happens. We need to get it to where we're both super happy with it."  

Even though Rogue Squadron earned an announcement video in which Jenkins expressed wanting to make the greatest fighter-pilot movie of all time, the project isn't officially greenlit. The filmmaker went on to express her passion for the franchise and desire to make the movie happen.

"The emotion of Star Wars and what it stands for is something so beautiful in this world," Jenkins confirmed. "If I can do something beautiful and do something that serves that audience, I would love to do it."

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Stay tuned for updates on Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

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