Steven Knight, the writer who took over from Damon Lindelof early last year on the untitled Rey Skywalker film, has reportedly yet to turn in a draft according to a reliable insider.
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After two years of development and various drafts, Damon Lindelof (Watchmen) and Justin Brit-Gibson (Into the Badlands) exited the untitled Rey Skywalker movie in March 2023 and Peaky Blinders creator, Steven Knight, came aboard the project and took over writing duties. The Rey Skywalker film was formally announced a month later at Star Wars Celebration, when the films lead, Daisy Ridley, took to the stage alongside the films director, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
Though Lucasfilm have ever confirmed the Ridley led flick was the next Star Wars movie to release in theatres, it was widely reported and believed that this was case, and that movie would release on May 22nd, 2026, a release date announced last year for an untitled Star Wars film. Just in November, Daisy Ridley herself shared that she believed that the next Star Wars film to be released theatrically was the one she was leading. However, a spanner was thrown into the works yesterday when Lucasfilm announced, The Mandalorian and Grogu, a feature film directed by Jon Favreau, the creator of The Mandalorian, that is set to go into production this year and is “leading” Lucasfilm’s Star Wars theatrical slate which includes the untitled Rey Skywalker effort.
In April last year, Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm president, revealed that Steven Knight was due to submit a draft for the Rey film by mid-May and just a few weeks later, the industry grinded to a halt when the Writers Strike of America strike began on May 2nd, and continued until September 27th. During this time Knight was not permitted to continue working on the Star Wars film until the strike was resolved. This meant the hopes that Lucasfilm had at the time had gone out the window and naturally everybody assumed that once the strike concluded, Knight would be hard at work on his draft once again. Many fans speculated that because the strike began two weeks before Knight’s draft had to be turned in, that the writer only had two weeks left of work on his first draft, though this was never reported to be the case.
The holidays came and went with no update on the films status and the status of Knight’s draft from the trades or reliable insiders/journalists. However, during this time Knight has spoken about putting in the hours and attempting to finish the script for his Peaky Blinders movie during the end of last year, which will film this Summer and release next year. It seems Knight’s more recent efforts has been dedicated to Blinders, the work he’s best known for, and with The Mandalorian and Grogu seem now taking the May 2026 release window, Knight likely has more time to finish his work on his Star Wars draft.
This brings us to now when reliable Star Wars insider, MakingStarWars, shared what he recently heard in regards to Knight’s work on the Rey Skywalker movie. MSW revealed that according to his sources, Steven Knight has yet to pen his Star Wars draft, likely because of the reasons mentioned earlier, and that Lucasfilm chose Knight for the job as he was who they could get following the departure of the films original writers, Damon Lindelof and Justin Brit-Gibson. MSW stressed that he isn’t saying that Knight is off the Rey project or not, he doesn’t know, but that things did not line up for the writer.
“Today I was told that [Steven] Knight hasn’t written it [his draft], he hasn’t got to get to it. The scheduling and the stars did not align. Steven Knight was simply the guy they picked up and who they could get in that moment [following Damon Lindelof’s exit] and it never lined up. I’m not saying that he is off of it, I’m not saying that he’s going to write it or not going to write it – I don’t know.” – MakingStarWars
In November, Daisy Ridley shared that she’d yet to read a script for the Star Wars movie, but that she knew what the story was. This reveal came to us as Ridley was on a press tour for her film, The Marsh King’s Daughter, and Ridley is currently on another press tour for her next release, Sometimes I Think About Dying, so hopefully she gets poised some Star Wars questions and can give us an update on the status of her movie.
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