On Thursday, May 26th, Star Wars Celebration 2022 kicked off in California with Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase. During the showcase, fans in attendance saw the first footage from Andor, heard Duel of the Fates live, and learned that The Mandalorian season 3 and Ahsoka are both set to premiere in 2023. But as the presentation wrapped up, Lucasfilm failed to answer our most pressing question. Where are the Star Wars movies?
When do the next Star Wars movies come out?
Shortly after Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase ended, StarWars.com shared an article featuring 20 highlights from the event. Not a single one of those highlights has anything to do with a new Star Wars movie. It has become increasingly clear that the movies will take a backseat to the shows for now. Disney has to avoid making the same mistakes twice.
In an interview with Total Film after the showcase, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy discussed the “curious lack of talk about the movies.”
First, she confirmed that the as of yet untitled project from Taika Waititi will be the next Star Wars movie. If all goes accordingly, it should be out in late 2023, according to Kennedy. But she also admitted that the studio hasn’t “locked anything in” quite yet.
Here’s what Kennedy said when asked about the development of future movies:
Of course, they’ve been in movement all along. As we leave the saga, we have all this great, exciting work happening on the television side that informs so much about where we’re going. We want to be very intentional about that. And we have great talent that we’re working with – people who care so deeply about what the next iteration of Star Wars is and about getting people back into movie theatres, so we can really come out with a bang. That’s important to us.
Kennedy then offered an intriguing answer to a question about moving past the Skywalker Saga: “We need to create a whole new saga,” she proclaimed.
While this is not especially surprising, Lucasfilm and Disney have yet to share even a rough roadmap for what the future of Star Wars looks like in theaters. Based on Kennedy’s answer, it sounds like the plan is to leave Anakin, Luke, and Rey behind and start fresh.
The future of the Star Wars film franchise
Here is the current status — as far as we know — of every unreleased Star Wars movie that Lucasfilm and Disney have announced to date:
- Untitled Taika Waititi project: In May 2020, Disney announced that Taika Waititi would direct a new Star Wars movie that he will co-write with Krysty Wilson-Cairns. The movie is currently slated to hit theaters before the end of 2023.
- Rogue Squadron: During its 2020 Investor Day event, Disney said that the next Star Wars feature film would be Rogue Squadron. Patty Jenkins had signed on to direct, and we even got this snazzy lil’ video. About a year later, The Hollywood Reporter reported that scheduling issues had pushed filming back, and therefore, Disney took the movie off of its production schedule. Presumably, 2024 is the earliest we should expect to see Rogue Squadron.
- Rian Johnson’s trilogy: It’s been nearly five years since Disney and Lucasfilm first announced that The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson would create a brand new Star Wars film trilogy. They said the trilogy would “introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.” In 2022, that’s still all we know about these movies. In a recent interview, Kathleen Kennedy admitted that “Rian has been unbelievably busy with Knives Out and the deal that he made at Netflix for multiple movies.”
As you can tell, the future of Star Wars movies is looking decidedly dim. Now that Waititi has wrapped up his second Thor movie, he has time to focus on his first Star Wars movie. If there aren’t any delays, we might even see it before the end of next year. Otherwise, it’s unclear what the future holds for one of the biggest franchises of all time.
