The Mandalorian and Grogu
Lucasfilm
We are now in the new Dave Filoni era of Star Wars, where he will now be co-president of Lucasfilm alongside Lynwen Brennan after the departure of Kathleen Kennedy on Thursday. Filoni will be handling the creative/production side of Star Wars from here, and reportedly is looking to accelerate a film slate that has been dormant since 2019’s Rise of Skywalker.
There are two projects that are definitely happening: the rather buzz-less Mandalorian and Grogu movie, out in just six months on May 22. Then, there is Shawn Levy’s Ryan Gosling-starring Starfighter, which we know relatively little about, other than the fact that it exists.
On her way out, Kennedy went over the current list of Star Wars projects outside of those that are in the works or sometimes…not in the works. The list as a whole feels pretty concerning if Lucasfilm is looking to leap back into the movie game.
- James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi film probably sounds the most promising out of anything here, given that it’s finally getting extremely far away from the Skywalker era, but the project is currently “on hold” for reasons unknown.
- Donald Glover has turned in a script for a Lando movie, a spin-off of the Solo movie that Disney did not seem terribly pleased by, given its box office. Glover is talented, but this seems like a pretty big risk unless they can do it for cheap.
- Simon Kinberg is working on a full trilogy of films. On the one hand, Kinberg is responsible for some of the better Clone Wars episodes a long time ago. On the other, Kingberg is responsible for solo writing and directing X-Men: Dark Phoenix, easily the worst film in the entire X-Men slate. So this is…concerning, to say the least.
- Taika Waititi has a “hilarious and great” script he’s turned in, though Waititi’s star has fallen in the eyes of many fans in the wake of Thor: Love and Thunder. I will say I think criticism of him is a touch overblown, as since What We Do in the Shadows, he has been responsible for a number of great projects from Our Flag Means Death to Reservation Dogs, plus a Thor movie people did like, Ragnarok. So we’ll see.
- Strangely, Kennedy seems to indicate the leaked Steven Soderbergh The Hunt for Ben Solo film is not fully dead, though it’s on the back burner. That was something fans were excited about when it was revealed, but even if it’s not in the ground, it does not seem like a priority.
- Then, there’s what wasn’t mentioned, which was a Rey feature that at one point seemed like the main thing that was going to continue Star Wars past the new trilogy storylines, but it has effectively evaporated somehow.
I do not take much comfort in what I’m reading here. This slate of projects is full of questionable ideas or good ideas that are on hold for one reason or another. I am curious to see if anything instantly changes under Filoni from here, though he has been heavily involved in development before this.
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