Earlier this week Disney shared their updated release schedule which saw the planned untitled Star Wars film set for December 2025 get delayed to May of 2026, along with a new release date of December 2026 for another untitled Star Wars movie. Despite the delay, a reliable insider is reporting that the film will shoot in the Spring of 2024.
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Disney and Lucasfilm had an untitled Star Wars flick set for release in December of 2025 for a handful of years, with the belief being, due to numerous reports, that the movie aiming for that release date is the one being led by Daisy Ridley, with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel) set to direct and Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) penning the script. The film itself was formally announced at Star Wars Celebration back in April, with Lucasfilm president, Kathleen Kennedy, and Obaid-Chinoy both revealing that the film will see Ridley’s Rey Skywalker building a New Jedi Order. The announcement followed the departure of the films original writers, Damon Lindelof (Watchmen) and Justin Britt-Gibson (Into the Badlands), who were asked to leave the project after reportedly turning in a disappointing script.
However Disney has now delayed the untitled New Jedi Order Star Wars movie to May 22nd, 2026 which has felt like a possibility in recent times due to the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. When doing press at Celebration, Kennedy revealed that writer, Steven Knight, was due to submit his draft of the script by mid-May, but as we know, the WGA strike began on May 1st and work was halted. It’s unknown if Knight managed to submit a draft earlier than expected, ahead of the WGA strike, but with no end insight currently, it would delay writing on the project by an unknown number of months.
Journalist and credible industry insider, Jeff Sneider, took to his podcast, The Hot Mic, this week to address the films delay. According to Sneider, the delay comes from the third Avatar film having to be delayed into December 2025 and Disney not wanting two of their monumentally successful franchises going head-to-head, so they delayed the untitled Daisy Ridley led flick to May 2026, the same month Disney and Marvel Studios will release Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. However the most notable tidbit from Sneider is that Disney and Lucasfilm have not delayed their plans in regards to production for the Obaid-Chinoy directed effort, claiming that the film is still aiming to begin filming in April of next year.
“I said they [Disney] were going to let her [Kathleen Kennedy] make that next Star Wars movie, right? If there’s not a Star Wars movie out by December 2025 then she’ll be let go. In this case there’s not going to be a Star Wars movie, but that’s because they [Disney] pushed it to May [2026] because of Avatar [3] – Avatar needed a delay. Does that speak to our rumour that he [James Cameron] was going to something with the extra footage [of Avatar], could that come in next year? But with regards to that, they [Disney] couldn’t have Star Wars and Avatar releasing in December 2025, so they delayed Star Wars to May 2026 and it’s still going to start filming in April [2024], it’s not delayed or anything.”
The news that Lucasfilm still intends on shooting the film in April next year, two years before the film is due to release, comes as a bit of a surprise to me given that a release date delay gives the production more time to start shooting and for Knight to continue working on the script as he had to pause work on it for an unspecified amount of time. Personally I still expect a production delay at some point due to the impacts of the WGA strike, but that should not hamper the films release date and this is merely just my own speculation and I’m not working off of information provided by my various sources. However I have been told on various occasions that the New Jedi Order film is due to shoot in the United Kingdom, likely at Pinewood Studios.
Earlier this week I broke down the Star Wars release dates set by Lucasfilm and Disney, detailing what movie will take which release date, which I encourage you to read here. Jeff Sneider also denied some wild rumours from last week that included Idris Elba being cast in the upcoming New Jedi Order movie.
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