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Credit: LucasfilmKathleen Kennedy’s Star Wars is being shaken up. As new films and TV shows enter the canon, the galaxy far, far away will officially be going down an uncharted path.
Back in 1977, George Lucas’s science-fiction franchise changed the world forever. Sparking a billion-dollar franchise, Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope turned the likes of Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrier Fisher into household names.
The franchise, which consists of multiple movies and TV series, is now in the hands of The Walt Disney Company after the Mouse House acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. Disney’s first foray into Star Wars filmmaking came with J.J Abrams’s Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens (2015), starring Daisy Ridley as this generation’s new fledgling Jedi. But Disney didn’t omit the original stars; quite the opposite. Hamill, Ford, and Fisher reprised their roles as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa, respectively.
While Disney’s sequel trilogy, which went on to include Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi (2017) and Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker (2019), divided the fandom, the company’s TV output has slowly been rebuilding the brand. With the likes of The Mandalorian, Andor, and Ahsoka, Disney’s small-screen offerings have been satiating fans since 2019 when Pedro Pascal made his galactic debut as Din Djarin in The Mandalorian.
There hasn’t been a movie since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, which is causing patience to wear thin. However, it doesn’t mean Lucasfilm doesn’t have a ton on the way.
There are numerous Star Wars projects in development. In fact, Disney’s latest shareholder presentation puts three films released between 2025 and 2027. One of these can be expected to be Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian & Grogu—a Mando project separate from Dave Filoni’s own Mando-Verse movie that was announced at last year’s Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023.
Alongside Filoni’s movie, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy also revealed that Daisy Ridley would be returning to play Rey Skywalker in a film loosely titled Star Wars: New Jedi Order. The post-sequel trilogy movie will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and does not yet have a release date. What fans do know is that Ridley’s Rey will be rebuilding the Jedi Order and become the new Luke Skywalker of the franchise.
But the third film to be announced proved to be the most intriguing. Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny (2023) director James Mangold will go the furthest back in the timeline and bring audiences the Dawn of the Jedi—a film about the origins of the Force. This will then be earlier than the current High Republic multi-media initiative and the upcoming Disney+ series, The Acolyte from Leslye Headland.
Little is known about Mangold’s foray into the Star Wars universe, but it isn’t the first time creators have dabbled in the idea of Force and Jedi origin.
Game of Thrones masterminds David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were once tapped to lead a new Star Wars trilogy about the first Jedi. The pair, who were once revered for their work on adapting George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones books for HBO, fell from grace in the eyes of fans after the deeply polarising eighth season of the fantasy series. But back in 2018, Kathleen Kennedy shared her excitement at bringing the duo into the galaxy far, far away.
“David and Dan are some of the best storytellers working today,” Kennedy said via an official Disney press release. “Their command of complex characters, depth of story, and richness of mythology will break new ground and boldly push Star Wars in ways I find incredibly exciting.”
At the time, Benioff and Weiss were “honored” and “terrified” by the opportunity, as they said in the same press release, but now things have dramatically shifted as Kennedy replaced this project with Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi movie after their first Jedi project was scrapped.
And it’s likely they will never return. Speaking to Games Radar, the pair said:
“I think, you know, when you’ve got a franchise that’s already so well established, like Star Wars or James Bond or so forth, I think there’s less independence when you come in to try to tell a story that you want to tell, and so I think what Dan [Weiss] and I have learned is that it’s more fun for us to start something afresh.”
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While the answer does ring true—Star Wars does come with its own creative rule book (add Disney to that, and it’s surely difficult to navigate)—there does seem to be space for more experimental filmmaking. Taika Waititi has said his Star Wars film will be vastly different from anything audiences have seen before. And Waititi has a signature style that some may not want in the galaxy far, far away. The Academy Award winner even said that his Star Wars film will “piss people off.”
Kennedy’s Benioff and Weiss replacement choice will impact the franchise the most out of any installment in the franchise. Why? Because the Jedi and the lore of the Force are in the bones of the franchise. The Jedi (and Sith) are an intrinsic part of this 47-year-old phenomenon, and dealing with the origins of the Force will change everything we know.
Would you have liked to see the Game of Thrones creators tackle the Star Wars universe? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!