In a move that likely won’t surprise any Star Wars fan, Disney has officially removed the Patty Jenkins film Star Wars: Rogue Squadron from its release calendar. The project was first announced back in 2020, which included the debut of a promo video in which Jenkins shared her excitement about the movie, which was initially slated to hit theaters this year before being pushed to 2023. A number of reports have emerged in the years since that announcement that Jenkins’ other projects were taking priority, though even with various opportunities to give fans an update on that project, it has now officially been removed from its December 22, 2023 release date.
On the one hand, this confirmation will come as a relief to fans, as there have been so many reports about the project since it was announced and the studio was ignoring any official confirmation of the project’s status, but being pulled from the release calendar entirely will surely disappoint plenty of fans as well. While we can’t say that Lucasfilm is scrapping the project entirely, it seems as though it won’t be moving forward anytime soon.
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Speaking more to Lucasfilm as a whole, this is only the latest instance of the studio sharing updates with fans about projects that have uncertain futures. Both Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Thor filmmaker Taika Waititi have been announced as developing films, yet the status of such projects is largely unknown, as are their release dates. The studio also previously announced that Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would be developing films for the franchise, only for those projects to be scrapped entirely.
Most famously, Lucasfilm announced back in 2017 that Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson would develop a trilogy of films for the franchise, with there being no updates on those plans in the years since. Johnson, however, recently reminded fans how he’s still passionate about telling those stories.
“I’ve stayed close to [Lucasfilm president] Kathleen [Kennedy] and we get together often and talk about it,” he told Empire Magazine recently about the status of those plans. “It’s just at this point a matter of schedule and when it can happen. It would break my heart if I were finished, if I couldn’t get back in that sandbox at some point.”
Stay tuned for details on the future of the Star Wars franchise.
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