In April, Lucasfilm shocked Star Wars fans who were attending the Lucasfilm Showcase at Star Wars Celebration by bringing out the lead of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Daisy Ridley, and confirming she’ll be leading the untitled Star Wars movie being directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel) and written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders).
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Though it was known Obaid-Chinoy was directing a Star Wars movie at the time, and that Knight had recently step aboard, replacing Damon Lindelof and Justin Brit-Gibson as the writer, it was unknown what the story would focus on and who would lead the project. Obaid-Chinoy, Ridley and Lucasfilm president, Kathleen Kennedy, revealed to the audience that the flick would see Ridley’s Rey Skywalker building a new Jedi Order fifteen years after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
During interviews after the Lucasfilm Showcase, Kennedy revealed that Steven Knight was due to submit a draft of the script in mid-May. However, on May 2nd the Writers Guild of America strike began, and this meant that Knight was not able to perform writing duties on the project until the strike concluded, which it would not do so until September. Though not mentioned, many assume that Knight likely did not submit his completed first draft before the strike began and thus couldn’t work on it until the tail end of September.
Reports from Jeff Sneider pointed towards an April 2024 filming start for the movie, with Lucasfilm hoping to cast or begin casting by Labour Day (September 4th) this year. Due to the WGA strike and the SAG-AFTRA strikes, this did not come to fruition. At this time it is unknown when production is looking to start and it is also unknown if Knight has submitted a draft of his script following the WGA strike which ended almost two months ago.
Whether or not Knight has submitted a script remains to be seen, but one person who’s not read a script is the films lead, Daisy Ridley. Ridley, who’s currently promoting the release of her latest film, The Marsh Kings Daughter, which underperformed and the box office and currently dons a 37% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, spoke briefly with Collider about the Star Wars project.
Ridley shared that she’s very excited about the film, naturally, and she knows what the story of it is. Despite knowing what the planned story is for the film, Ridley shares that she’s still waiting to read a script for the project, but teased that the story itself is unexpected.
“The story is really cool. I’m waiting to read a script because, obviously, I don’t have any other updates. It’s not what I expected, but I’m very excited.” – Daisy Ridley via Collider
Though Ridley knows the planned story for the upcoming film, she also doesn’t know if it’ll be the only story to feature Rey Skywalker. She shares that she doesn’t know if there’s more films to come for her and doesn’t want to commit to saying there’s only one, but at this time, it’s all that she is aware of. When Lindelof was penning the project, various reports claimed that the film was being written as a standalone film, but if successful, it could continue into a series of films. It’s unknown if that’s still the case with Knight and Obaid-Chinoy at the helm.
“I know the storyline for one film. That’s not to say that’s all it is, but that’s what I was told about.” – Daisy Ridley via Collider
As mentioned earlier in the article, reports pointed towards an April start for the Rey film before the industry grinded to a halt with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Lucasfilm have two Star Wars movies for 2026, one in May and the second in December. It’s been long believed that the Rey film would be the first to release, taking the aforementioned May date. Ridley herself told Collider that she imagines it’ll be the next Star Wars film to be released, meaning May 2026, but at the moment, she does not know how quickly things will start back up on the project now that we’re on the other side of the strikes.
“I imagine it will be the next film [to release], I think. I mean, again, I don’t know, post strikes and everything, how quickly things will start up again.” – Daisy Ridley via Collider
I’m glad to see Ridley somewhat confirm what’s been reported for quite sometime from various outlets, including myself, that the Rey Skywalker film is planned to be the next Star Wars theatrical release and first since the divisive The Rise of Skywalker. Hopefully we get more significant updates on the flick by the years end as you’d assume that Lucasfilm and Disney would still be hoping to start filming by the end of 2024 ahead of the planned May 2026 release.
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