Market Of Bliss
Two years ago, the Star Wars Celebration announced with enormous fanfare that Daisy Ridley was returning as Rey Skywalker for a new film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. The rumored title was New Jedi Order; it’d be set after The Rise of Skywalker, and would have shown Rey teaching the Force to a new generation of Jedi Knights.
This year’s Star Wars Celebration is currently underway in Japan, with the headlines dominated by new details on The Mandalorian & Grogu and Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling’s Star Wars: Starfighter. With renewed focus on Star Wars on the big screen, we expected an update on the Rey movie. But… *crickets*.
Yup, there was not a single mention whatsoever of any movie starring Rey. Plus, with The Mandalorian & Grogu out in 2026 and Starfighter in 2027, that means the next two years’ movies have already been decided. So, what’s going on?
First up, the Rey movie has seen major script issues. Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson were initially attached, but departed in Mar. 2023, reportedly due to Lucasfilm hating with their script. Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight took over and promptly exited in Oct. 2024, leaving the project without a writer. The Bourne Ultimatum writer George Nolfi was next in line, but doesn’t seem to have produced a script either.
Oh no. The movie nobody asked for is getting delayed.
— David Norris (@cdavidnorris) October 25, 2024
This was once speculated to target a Dec. 2026 slot reserved for a Star Wars movie, but Disney has now replaced that with Ice Age 6. While this 2026 release date was never explicitly confirmed as the Rey movie, it was the likely candidate, given its advanced development stage compared to other projects. Lucasfilm now positioning The Mandalorian & Grogu for May 2026 further suggests the Rey film has been, at best, deprioritized.
Disney has removed a “Star Wars” film previously scheduled for Dec. 18, 2026 from its release calendar. “Ice Age 6” will move into its spot.https://t.co/rL2ghu1eyb
— Variety (@Variety) November 15, 2024
And, of course, this wouldn’t be the first time a major project was announced only for it to quickly sputter out. See Rian Johnson’s never-made trilogy, or Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron, or Taika Waititi’s movie, or Kevin Feige’s movie or… Well, you get the picture.
It seems that Disney and Lucasfilm have a serious problem with announcing movies that are mere concepts rather than fleshed-out ideas. Presumably, the plan was to confirm they were making a Rey movie, then figure out what that would actually look like. As nobody came up with an idea worth making, development fizzled, creative talent moved on to other things, and the film quietly died on the vine.
Maybe one day there will be a new Star Wars movie featuring Daisy Ridley as Rey, but they’re going to have to start development from scratch. So, for now, best to just forget about this. The best we can hope for is that some of the rejected scripts are leaked, if only so we can see what it was about them that LucasFilm hated so much.
