The writing has been on the wall for some time. Star Wars Celebration and D23 came and went with no news of the Star Wars spinoff, Rogue Squadron, and now official news comes from Disney that it has been removed from its targeted date and the release schedule entirely.
Waiting for the ROGUE SQUADRON Star Wars movie that was to come 12/22/23? Get ready to keep waiting. Disney just officially took it off the release schedule.
The removal of Rogue Squadron from Disney’s schedule shouldn’t be too surprising, of course. Nearly a year ago, it was reported that Jenkins was putting the film on the backburner, confirming it would not enter production this year for a 2023 release date. The project was originally unveiled during an investor’s call in 2020. The studio and Jenkins even unveiled a teaser video with Jenkins teasing her excitement over a project she had hoped to be “the greatest fighter pilot movie ever made.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, it is currently unknown whether or not Disney and/or Jenkins will return to Rogue Squadronat a future date. Matthew Robinson, who co-wrote The Invention of Lying, was announced as the film’s writer in 2021. It is currently unclear if Robinson will remain on board should the film move forward once again.
From The Good Place to a galaxy far, far away. Deadline reports that Manny Jacinto has been cast in the forthcoming Star Wars series, The Acolyte. The actor joins an impressive cast that consists of Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give), Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game), and Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim). Details regarding Jacinto’s character are being kept under wraps.
Jacinto is perhaps best known for his role as Jason Mendoza inThe Good Place. His other credits include Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers and Netflix’s Brand New Cherry Flavor, and he also appeared in the movie of the year, Top Gun: Maverick, as Lt. Billy ‘Fritz’ Avalone. The busy actor is also set to appear in The Knife, Cora Bora and Balestra.
The Acolyte is being described as a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a “galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging Dark side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.” The project was first announced in April 2020, with Lucasfilm finally confirming the series in December 2020.
Russian Doll‘s Leslye Headland will serve as the series director, writer, executive producer and showrunner on The Acolyte.
While Jon Watts was originally set to direct Fantastic Four after his success with Spider-Man: No Way Home, he suddenly pulled back on the project. Shortly after he’d announce his involvement with a new Star Wars series titled Skeleton Crew. It wasn’t until Star Wars Anniversary that we’d find out about it but it turns out the idea was actually going back and forth between Jon Favreau and Jon Watts during their time on the set for Spider-Man as revealed during the D23 Expo panel.
Favreau talks about howbhe talked to Jon Watts on Spider-Man and that he had an idea that became Skeleton Crew#D23Expopic.twitter.com/8PpUQxNvVC
Squid Game actor Lee Jung-Jae is heading to a galaxy far, far away.
Deadline reports that the actor has signed on to The Acolyte as the male lead. The news comes days before the Emmys, where Jung-Jae earned a history-making nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Drama for his work on the Netflix series, Squid Game. This will mark his first major studio role following the success of Squid Game. Further details surrounding the actor’s role in The Acolyte are currently unknown. Jung-Jae joins the previously announced Amandla Steinberg and Jodi Smith-Turner.
Russian Doll‘s Leslye Headland will serve as the series director, writer, executive producer and showrunner on The Acolyte. According to Deadline, Headland has been working closely with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy on the series, including the show’s casting. The series is said to take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.
Jung-Jae’s casting is a huge win for Lucasfilm and Star Wars as the actor has been highly sought after since the success of Squid Game.
The Acolyte was first announced in April 2020 by Variety, with Disney officially confirming the series in December 2020. It’s currently unknown when production will kick off, but with D23 right around the corner, perhaps we’ll continue to learn more about what looks to be Lucasfilm’s most promising Star Wars series.
Announced during Disney’s 2020 Investor Day, The Acolyte was one of many Star Wars projects that went dark for a while with virtually no updates on the series. That was until it had been announced that AmandaStenberg was set to lead the cast of the Sith-based prequel series for Disney+ and it looks like the project has secured yet another cast member.
Deadline is reporting that actress Jodie Turner-Smith, best known for her work in projects like After Yang, Queen and Slim, and Anne Boleyn, has joined the cast of the Disney+ series. The trade report didn’t have any details on who Smith will be playing in the series as details on the project still remain under wraps.
The series, developed by Netflix’s Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland, is said to take viewers into the last days of the High Republic as the Dark Side grows in power and will follow a young Sith apprentice, known as an Acolyte. The project is reportedly set to begin filming sometime this Fall.
Fans can most likely expect to hear more on the project at the upcoming D23 expo set for September 9th and 10th where anything and everything under the Disney umbrella will have time to shine during two major Studio Showcase panels.
Smith can be seen in multiple upcoming projects such as White Noise alongside Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, directed by Noah Baumbach and Netflix’s Murder Mystery 2.
When Rian Johnson worked on The Last Jedi, it was revealed that he’d be developing his own Star Wars trilogy. There were no details revealed on just how exactly it was going to tie into the greater mythos or even the direction. Yet, the fan reception of his Star Wars project can still be felt to today but that has seemingly not deterred the director from hoping to tackle this project.
In an interview with Empire, while promoting his upcoming Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion, he reveals that he still actively is in talks with Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy and that he’s definitely hoping to adapt his trilogy eventually; even if schedules are continuing to postpone this project indefinitely.
I’ve stayed close to Kathleen [Kennedy] and we get together often and talk about it. It’s just at this point a matter of schedule and when it can happen. It would break my heart if I were finished, if I couldn’t get back in that sandbox at some point.
Rian Johnson
It’s great to know that he’s still working on his trilogy and Star Wars is still expanding with its new Disny+ series. So, while the cinematic aspect of the franchise is currently on ice, there’s hope that once Johnson wraps up his work on the Knives Out sequels for Netflix, he might potentially start work on his take on a galaxy far, far away.
Disney’s second Studios Showcase at D23 2022 looms large as both Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm are set to roll out first looks and announcements for their upcoming slates. We’ve taken a shot at predicting what Marvel Studios might get up to on stage in Hall D23, now it’s Lucasfilm’s turn.
Big Indy Energy
Perhaps the biggest news expected to come out of the Studios Showcase surrounds James Mangold’s Indiana Jones film. After a number of setbacks over the years, Indy V is set to release in theaters on June 30, 2023, nearly 4 years after its original target date. An all-star cast surrounds the legendary Harrison Ford in this one, so bringing them onstage to reveal the official title of the film and a teaser (there have been rumors that one is in the works) would make for a big splash for one of Lucasfilm’s largest non-Star Wars properties.
Bad Batch Bash
A second season of The Bad Batch is coming soon, but how soon? Originally, it was expected that the sophomore season of the animated series would drop on Disney + on September 28th; however, much has changed since then that could impact the series, most notably, the Star Wars live-action series Andor saw its release date pushed back nearly a month. With that change and no official word from Lucasfilm about when to expect the Batchers’ Season 2 exploits, fans aren’t entirely sure what to expect. That should all change at D23. An updated trailer and a release date are entirely reasonable expectations for a series that is all but a lock to premiere before the end of the year.
The Further Adventures of Willow Ufgood
The Disney Plus streaming series Willow was rolled out at Star Wars Celebration back in May and hasn’t been heard from since. Currently set to debut on the service in November, Willow has to be in the plans for D23. The first trailer was pretty nostalgic, so a second trailer that provides a bit more of an idea of what the series is all about is probably in order. It wouldn’t be too surprising if the star of the series, Warwick Davis, were on hand for something. Davis has a wonderful relationship with Lucasfilm, so if there’s an opportunity for him to be there, he certainly would be.
Mando and Ahsoka Updates
It is probably far too early for publicly released teasers/trailers for Season 3 of The Mandalorian and/or Ahsoka and those two projects were front and center at Star Wars Celebration back in May, but that doesn’t mean fans at D23 won’t be seeing something! Expect footage to be shown from both series and HOPEFULLY some target windows for release. These two series are among the Crown Jewels of Lucasfilm’s properties and you can expect the studio to show them off and generate hype around them whenever possible.
Who’s on the Crew?
Production on Jon Watts‘ streaming series, Skeleton Crew, has been underway for over a month now and short of Jude Law, the cast of the coming-of-age story is completely unknown. In fact, everything about the series is wrapped up in mystery and short of a few decent rumors and leaks, fans just don’t have a lot of information about the show. One thing that is known, however, is that it’s filming in California, making it possible for that unknown cast to swing into Anaheim and be introduced to the D23 crowd. Even if they don’t take a break from filming to pop in, however, it seems fair to expect some sort of update on the series.
Double Visions
Season 1 of Star Wars: Visions, a non-canon animated anime-inspired anthology, became an overnight sensation when it streamed on D+. A second season of the series was announced at Star Wars Celebration and rumors have indicated it may still stream in 2022. The new season will expand its menu of cultural influences beyond anime and continue to introduce new characters, locations and stories. An announcement of a release date along with either a trailer or some concept art doesn’t seem like too much to expect.
Tales Teasers and Timeline
Expected to stream on D+ sometime this Fall, Tales of the Jedi has no official release date and no official trailer, though one did leak online along with the plots of all six episodes. Since the series was first shown off back in May, it’s commandeered quite a bit more attention than anyone probably expected. A trailer, which would be made public, and a release date certainly seem in order.
Answers about The Acolyte
The Acolyte is one of Lucasfilm’s most mysterious and most talked about streaming projects. Even though it’s set to begin principal photography in October, there’s been next to no official news about the project. As of now, only the series lead, Amandla Stenberg, has been officially revealed by the studios. All this means that the series could have a fairly major presence in the Hall D23 presentation, introducing the cast and giving fans a little better idea of what to expect and either confirming or shooting down those Darth Plageuis rumors.
Announcements
If everything listed above happened at D23, not only would it fill Lucasfilm’s portion of the 2-hour time slot, but also please even Star Wars fans. However, there are a couple of other pieces of low-hanging fruit that Lucasfilm could pluck that would really send fans away in a frenzy. A second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi is as sure of a thing as any Star Wars project, so why not announce it? Now that Taika Waititi has fulfilled his obligations to Marvel Studios around Thor: Love and Thunder, how about some information on his Star Wars film? Three titles were recently trademarked(The Great Circle, The Galactic Circle, and Circle of Resistance.) that fans believe are Star Wars-related and COULD indicate an announcement is imminent. Could one of them be Waititi’s film? And of course, there’s always the element of surprise and the option that something entirely new pops up, whether Star Wars-related or related to another one of Lucasfilm’s major IPs.
No matter how you slice it, D23 is shaping up to be a can’t-miss event for fans of Lucasfilm’s many properties.
It looks like we may have seen the last of Finn in live-action Star Wars, as actor John Boyega has revealed in an interview with Variety that he has no real interest moving forward. He feels his work on The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker “was good” for him as he moves on to try his hands at a more diverse line-up of projects.
At this point, I’m cool off it. I’m good off it. I think Finn is at a good confirmation point where you can just enjoy him in other things, the games, the animation. But I feel like ‘[Episode] VII’ to ‘[Episode] IX’ was good for me. To be fair, [with] the allies that I’ve found within Joel Taylor and Jamie Foxx, Teyonah Parris, Viola Davis, all these people I’ve been working with… versatility is my path.
John Boyega
It’s no wonder that he may have not had any active interest anymore, as he had faced quite a bit of racist backlash for his initial casting. When it was hinted that he may become the face of the franchise and the next Jedi, there was a massive movement online. The prequel trilogy even led to the creation of the so-called “Fandom Menace” that has shown its fangs recently with Moses Ingram’s addition to the franchise in Obi-Wan Kenobi. He even reflects on how different the reaction to the backlash was towards Ingram in comparison to his time with the franchise.
It doesn’t make me feel bitter at all. It makes me feel like sometimes you are that guy. And my dad taught me that. Sometimes you’re not the guy to get the blessing and sometimes you are Moses, you know, you lead the people to the mountain, but you see the destination. You don’t get to go in, you get others to go in. And that’s where you get your happiness from. And for me to see other people accepted, and then at the same time to see that the studios now are like, ‘Okay, cool. This is not an elephant in the room conversation. We need to support our Black client.’ It’s fantastic.
John Boyega
It’s a shame that we’ll likely not see Finn’s character return, as the potential of exploring a former Stormtrooper turning good was such a compelling storyline when the initial trilogy was started.
Many were relieved when it was announced that Star Wars Visions would return for a second season. The animation anthology became quite the hit with its unique take on the iconic franchise. Not only did it offer small stories that each brought something new to the table, but it also included some truly fantastic animation. Many were surprised when the announcement dropped that the second volume would go beyond Japan, but it seems that is exactly the intention of executive producer James Waugh.
The first anthology is anime because we all loved the style of it, but personally my intention for Visions was to always let it be a more broad palette, because there’s so much great animation work going on in the world. There’s so many interesting voices in all sorts of other mediums that are really focused on animation right now. And we really wanted it to be, in a way, a “sub-brand” that allowed for different creators to come celebrate Star Wars from their own unique cultural perspective.
James Waugh
The animation varies from country to country, and opening up the possibility of other countries contributing does add something that’ll make the next season stand out.
And so Visions volume two is sort of a global tour of some of the most interesting animation studios on a global level. We have studios from Africa, Chile, England, Ireland, France, India… and the guiding light there was that we wanted their storytelling to be a reflection of what Star Wars meant in their culture, but also a reflection of the myths and stories that could only come out of their cultural context. Spring next year is currently where we’re targeting and I think it’s an absolutely beautiful anthology.
James Waugh
Luckily, spring isn’t too far away anymore and it’ll b exciting to see what stories will get explored, especially how the individual mythologies play into the storytelling approach. It also opens up the possibility of many more new stories to join the anthology over many years to come, which is always an exciting prospect for this varied galaxy far far away.
It looks like Lucasfilm found the perfect way to promote the upcoming release of Andor. While it was postponed to September 21st, it does look like they will build up to its release with a re-release of the Star Wars film, Rogue One. It is currently eyeing an August 26th release in select IMAX theaters as revealed by Fandango, which included the following tease as it’ll also include a special preview of the Disney+ series Andor.
Experience Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in select IMAX theatres. Plus, get an exclusive look at the new Disney+ Star Wars series, Andor! In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.
So, it’s quite the treat for fans of Rogue One that are excited to see what the upcoming prequel series has to offer. Andor will explore the earlier days of Diego Luna‘s character Cassian Andor. There are still no exact details on how the story will evolve, but the first trailers have teased that they are sticking to a similar vibe from the spinoff film.
It’s still crazy to think that we haven’t had a film release in the franchise since 2019 and there is currently not a single one in production. Lucasfilm has focused all its efforts on Disney+, which still offers some exciting and sometimes even experimental projects but it does feel like something is missing when it comes to whatever their plans are on expanding the franchise.
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