The next Star Wars film will no longer shoot next April as the actors’ strike delays production for at least six months.
At this year’s Star Wars celebration, Lucasfilm attempted to sweep the missteps of the past under the carpet and present a hopeful new dawn for the future of Star Wars as a cinematic franchise. We’ve covered the decade of mismanagement, project cancellations and creative differences here, but it’s fair to say that over the last ten years, things seem to have gotten progressively worse, even if the TV side of things is ticking along relatively well.
Earlier this year then, Lucasfilm presented a grand new vision for a series of new Star Wars films that would be coming to cinemas… and given the growing discontent surrounding the management of the franchise’s fortunes, studio boss Kathleen Kennedy would have been keen to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Unfortunately, a month after the announcement of three new films, the writers’ strike happened and that 148 day strike has seemingly caused the next Star Wars project to be delayed.
That project, which is untitled, will be directed by Ms Marvel's Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and features Daisy Ridley returning as Rey, some 15 years after The Rise Of Skywalker as she trains a new Jedi Order. Steven Knight is penning the script, but due to the strike, he now isn’t expected to hand in his next draft until somewhere around Christmas, making it impossible to shoot in London in April as was originally planned.
The earliest production date that Lucasfilm executives are said to be looking at is September, but of course, this all depends whether the script is to Kennedy’s liking. Knight isn’t the first writer to take a crack at this project, with Damon Lindelof and Britt Gibson exiting a month before the project was publicly announced, with the former publicly stating that the creative control demanded by Lucasfilm meant that “the degree of difficulty is extremely, extremely, extremely high” when it comes to pleasing everybody.
Of course, even if Knight’s next draft does please everybody, there’s still the small matter of finding production space and post-production facilities in what is expected to be a crowded period. Somehow, given past events with Lucasfilm, we jusdcon’t see this one running smoothly. We’ll bring you more on the future of Star Wars as we hear it.
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