A new ‘Star Wars’ project is in the works from director J.D. Dillard and writer Matt Owens. It is unknown whether this is a theatrical film or something for Disney+, but Disney chief Bob Iger just this month stated that the focus on ‘Star Wars’ for the foreseeable future was going to be television. However, though nothing has been officially announced, Disney does have a ‘Star Wars’ movie penciled in for December 16, 2022, and additional flicks set for December in both 2024 and 2026. It is known that this is a new project, not connected to the movies that Kevin Feige and Rian Johnson are reported to be developing.
During a February 4 call with investors, Iger stated:
“The priority for Star Wars in the short term is going to be, I’ll call it television for Disney+, and then we will have more to say about development of theatrical soon after that.”
The first episode of ‘The Mandalorian’ was available when Disney+ launched in November and is largely responsible for the streaming service’s phenomenal success — 28.6 million subscribers. Disney+ is also delivering a seventh and final season of the animated series ‘The Clone Wars’, and has other new ‘Star Wars’ shows in the works, including ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ starring Ewan McGregor and ‘Cassian Andor’ with Diego Luna.
RELATED: Disney+ Has Released A Timeline So You Can Binge The ‘Star Wars’ Saga In Chronological Order
Dillard’s low-budget sci-fi film ‘Sleight’ was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and was picked up and distributed by WWE Studios. It wound up making $4 million on a production budget of $250,000. Dillard followed that up with the Blumhouse thriller ‘Sweetheart’, starring Kiersey Clemons, which also screened at Sundance, before being released by Universal. He has also helmed two episodes of ‘Two Sentence Horror Stories’ and one episode of the upcoming series ‘Utopia’. He is set to direct the film ‘Devotion’ about Navy pilots during the Korean War.
Owens has previously written and served as story editor on the Marvel-based shows ‘Luke Cage’, ‘The Defenders’, and ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’. He is currently writing and is set to executive produce a live-action adaptation of the popular anime ‘One Piece’.
The last ‘Star Wars’ movie, ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ has amassed $1.07 billion at the box office and is the sixth highest-grossing movie of 2019. However, reception was mixed, as was that to its predecessor, ‘The Last Jedi’. And’Solo: A Star Wars Story’ remains the lowest-grossing movie in the entire franchise. Overall, the Disney era of ‘Star Wars’ has not been the slam dunk that the studio might have hoped when it paid $4.05 billion to acquire Lucasfilm LTD in 2012.
But seeing as how we know almost nothing about this upcoming project, it’s too early to determine whether this could revitalize the franchise more so than ‘The Mandalorian’ already has. But check back for updates as they become available.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
