{"id":416000,"date":"2026-01-16T03:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416000\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T03:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:18:11","slug":"star-wars-film-updates-dawn-of-the-jedi-on-hold-taika-waititis-and-lando-movies-will-depend-on-new-leadership-simon-kinberg-is-reworking-his-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416000\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Star Wars’ Film Updates: ‘Dawn of the Jedi’ On Hold, Taika Waititi’s and ‘Lando’ Movies Will Depend On New Leadership; Simon Kinberg Is Reworking His Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the announcement<\/a> of Kathleen Kennedy stepping down as of this week, Deadline has just published<\/a> an in-depth interview with the soon-to-be former President of Lucasfilm. In it, besides reminiscing about her producing past, Kennedy was asked about the current status of the\u00a0Star Wars film slate, and she took the chance to give brief updates on which projects are still alive, and which ones might not get made after all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deadline asked, point-blank, where all of the announced Star Wars projects are in the development pipeline. Kennedy explained the following:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to tread a bit carefully here. Jim Mangold and Beau Willimon wrote an incredible script, but it is definitely breaking the mold and it\u2019s on hold. Taika has turned in a script that I think is hilarious and great. It\u2019s not just my decision, especially when I\u2019ve got a foot out the door. Donald Glover has turned in a script. And as you have read, Steve Soderbergh and Adam Driver turned in a script written by Scott Burns. It was just great. Anything\u2019s a possibility if somebody\u2019s willing to take a risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

She later doubled down on Mangold\u2019s movie,\u00a0Dawn of the Jedi, being \u201con hold\u201d, and how Donald Glover\u2019s\u00a0Lando, as well as Taika Waititi\u2019s movie, will depend on Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMangold\u2019s is really on the back burner as is Soderbergh\u2019s. I think the ones by Taika and Donald are still somewhat alive. That\u2019s going to really be up to the new team to figure out. Dave, I know that Dave and Lynwen are very much on board with what [Simon Kinberg\u2019s] doing, and that would be a new trilogy. In the timeline of things, that takes you well into 2030 plus. So that\u2019s really what\u2019s up next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"James<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The question of Rian Johnson and his infamous trilogy that never was also came up. Kennedy reiterated her past statements, saying that these movies never really happened because of Johnson\u2019s Netflix commitments, but then she also mentioned that he might have been spooked by the online backlash (something the filmmaker has denied in interviews of his own):<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce he made the Netflix deal and went off to start doing the Knives Out films, that has occupied a huge amount of his time. That\u2019s the other thing that happens here. After Shawn and I started talking about Star Wars, Stranger Things kicks in and he was completely consumed for a while by that. That\u2019s what happened with Rian. And then I do believe he got spooked by the online negativity. I think Rian made one of the best Star Wars movies. He\u2019s a brilliant filmmaker and he got spooked. This is the rough part. When people come into this space, I have every filmmaker and actors say to me, \u2018What\u2019s going to happen?\u2019 They\u2019re a little scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve known since more than a year ago that Simon Kinberg is developing a film trilogy, of which he will write the first installment, and which will take place after The Rise of Skywalker. But we\u2019ve not had many updates since. Kennedy explained that, after Kinberg submitted an outline of the story last summer, Lucasfilm told him to rework it \u2014 and they\u2019re now owed a new draft in March. This is what Kennedy said:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s working right now. He wrote something that we read in August, and it was very good, but not there. We\u2019ve pretty much upended the story, and then spent a great deal of time on the treatment, which he finished literally about four weeks ago. And it\u2019s a very detailed treatment, like 70 pages. And so he is expected to give us something in March.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kathleen Kennedy did not mention Dave Filoni\u2019s movie in the interview (nor Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy\u2019s). But The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> did say in their story that Filoni\u2019s culmination event \u201cwas put on the backburner\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Simon<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

With regards to Starfighter, which wrapped shooting in December, Kennedy said the film was planned as a standalone adventure and not as the beginning of a new series. But she remarked several times how delighted she was with Flynn Gray, and that given the experience, she\u2019s not ruling out potential follow-ups:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was envisioned as a single film. Shawn Levy just made the experience so pleasant for everybody, and we found this 14-year-old kid out of Ireland who had virtually no experience. That\u2019s always risky, hanging a story so much on a child actor. You\u2019re not exactly sure how comfortable they\u2019re going to be. Flynn Gray turned out to be such a special kid.<\/p>\n

When you cast kids, a lot of it becomes about the parents. He has great parents and got lucky there, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Shawn\u2019s movie, this could go on, but it\u2019s not our intention right now. We really made the movie as a stand-alone story. But you cannot ignore the fact that this young actor is so good. I will be very surprised if he doesn\u2019t go on and we don\u2019t try to see if there might be future stories. But it was kind of nice not going into this and not having to think that way. We could just make a movie and tell a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

At another point in the interview, Kennedy also confirmed that she was in early discussions with David Fincher about working in\u00a0Star Wars (which we knew<\/a>), but also Vince Gilligan about doing a TV show, and also Alex Garland (both of which we definitely didn\u2019t know). She said:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had early conversations with David Fincher. With Vince Gilligan for TV. I have sat down with Alex Garland, and others where the minute you say their name, you go, \u2018Oh, that might be an interesting Star Wars.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kennedy was also asked about her biggest regrets as head of Lucasfilm, and her answer was an interesting one: making Solo. This is what she said:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I don\u2019t really have any regrets. Well, maybe a bit of regret about Solo: A Star Wars Story. I brought Larry Kasdan in on, and we were so excited about that idea. And then when you\u2019re into something and you realize fundamentally, conceptually, you cannot replace Han Solo, at least right now.<\/p>\n

As wonderful as Alden Ehrenreich was, and he really was good, and is a wonderful actor, we put him in an impossible situation. And once you\u2019re in it and once you\u2019re committed, you\u2019ve got to carry on. I think I have a bit of regret about that, but not about the moviemaking and filmmaking. I don\u2019t have regrets about that. I just think that conceptually, we did it too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more to the interview, including Kennedy\u2019s interest in exploring artificial intelligence tools in filmmaking for her future endeavors outside of Lucasfilm, or looking back at producing E.T.\u00a0and other films from her pre-Lucasfilm era. You may check it out in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

Miguel Fern\u00e1ndez is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings,\u00a0but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the announcement of Kathleen Kennedy stepping down as of this week, Deadline has just published an in-depth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,138242,44074,344,31331],"class_list":{"0":"post-416000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-kathleen-kennedy","12":"tag-lucasfilm","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-star-wars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}