The Rey Movie Has Lost Its Writer (Again)

If you were hoping that, aft all the caller drama successful the aftermath of The Acolyte‘s abrupt cancellation that Lucasfilm was rather done with assuring its audiences that it was so inactive susceptible of making and sticking to its program to really release Star Wars movies again, well… atrocious news. One of the astir absorbing projects successful the studio’s long-nebulous attempts to bring the postulation far, acold distant backmost to the metallic surface has conscionable been deed with different imaginable roadblock.

Variety reports that writer Steven Knight has parted ways Lucasfilm and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s planned Rey movie, the latest writer to depart the task aft helium replaced archetypal screenwriters Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson successful March 2023. At the clip Knight signed connected to pen the script, the quality of the task was unknown, until it was confirmed months aboriginal astatine Star Wars Celebration Europe that the movie would spot Daisy Ridley instrumentality arsenic Rey Skywalker, attempting to rebuild a caller Jedi Order after the events of The Rise of Skywalker.

At the clip the Rey film–one of 3 projects announced astatine Celebration successful 2023, including a Dave-Filoni-helmed Mandalorian “team-up” movie mostly presumed to beryllium existent continuity’s riff connected the famous Heir to the Empire caller trilogy by Timothy Zahn, and a James Mangold task acceptable thousands of years successful the past astir the origins of the archetypal Jedi–was wide assumed to beryllium the studio’s archetypal theatrical Star Wars merchandise since 2019, aft respective failed attempts to bring Star Wars backmost to theaters portion the franchise recovered itself a footing successful TV done Disney+.

That is until Lucasfilm made the astonishment announcement aboriginal this twelvemonth that it was also developing The Mandalorian & Grogu, a theatrical continuation of the TV series, directed by Jon Favreau and rapidly slotted successful for a May 2026 merchandise date. Throughout, the Rey movie has already faced aggregate controversies, including rumors of its delayed production and attempts by right-wing taste grifters to discredit Obaid-Chinoy successful the ongoing civilization warfare against “woke” media. Lucasfilm inactive has untitled Star Wars projects presently slated for merchandise successful Disney’s calendar successful December 2026 and December 2027, but Variety reports that Knight’s exit from the task and the hunt for a caller screenwriter could mean the Rey movie present whitethorn not participate accumulation until precocious 2025 astatine the earliest.

The update comes astatine a clip of upheaval for Star Wars, arsenic Lucasfilm attempts to dependable the franchise from a bid of setbacks implicit the past fewer years, including its delayed attempts to merchandise new Star Wars movies (connected to the main Skywalker Saga oregon otherwise) and the franchise’s spot successful the aforementioned online civilization war, exacerbated by the caller cancellation of The Acolyte aft the bid and its creatives were taxable to multiple rounds of online discourse and controversies astir its imaginativeness for the franchise. For present astatine least, lone 2 things are truly acceptable successful chromatic for Star Wars‘ future: the adjacent live-action TV series, Skeleton Crew, is acceptable to hit Disney+ this December, while The Mandalorian & Grogu remains locked successful to that May 2026 merchandise date, and even showed aboriginal footage astatine D23 this past summer. Anything beyond that, whether it’s TV bid similar the instrumentality of Andor and Ahsoka, oregon aboriginal films, remains up successful the air.

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