One of the biggest surprises Star Wars fans received during the Disney Investor Day 2020 was the announcement of a new movie, which is hitting theaters in 2023. The new Star Wars movie is currently titled Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and will be directed by Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins. The Rogue Squadron announcement was one of many shared by Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, who also announced the upcoming The Mandalorian spinoff shows Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic as well as Star Wars TV shows Lando, Andor, The Acolyte, The Bad Batch, and Obi-Wan.
But we're here to talk about Rogue Squadron. Specifically, we're here to talk about what Jenkins was willing to share when Collider's Steven Weintraub spoke with her during the press day for Wonder Woman 1984. When asked who was writing the script for Rogue Squadron, the director demurred, teasing that "I want him to have his own proper announcement, so I'm going to wait until that comes out." But it does sound like they're fairly far along.
As far as where they are in the writing process, Jenkins said:
"We're very far into the — we're finishing the treatment basically, which is pretty big. So it ends up being like where you're fairly close to a well-along screenplay by the time I'm done with the treatment in my process. So yeah, we've been working on it for awhile. It's going great. I'm super excited about it. I'm super excited about the story."
Rogue Squadron is a notable Star Wars project for a few reasons. It will be the first new Lucasfilm feature following 2019's Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker. Furthermore, it's quite possible this new movie will have no connection to the nine-movie Skywalker saga which has been the dominant Star Wars story for the last 40-plus years. Based on the special video Jenkins shared on Twitter after the Rogue Squadron announcement, her movie will have a deeply personal connection while also exploring the lives of a new group of Star Wars characters in an effort to make "the greatest fighter pilot movie of all time."
Jenkins also weighed on in the huge spread of projects she has on her plate right now. Beyond Wonder Woman 1984, which she is still in the midst of promoting, as well as Rogue Squadron, she's got a movie about the Egyptian queen Cleopatra in the works with Gal Gadot. Can we expect her to get these projects done one right after the other? As Jenkins told us, she's got a long road ahead of her should these projects get off the ground
"You can never do it in one year. You could never do a good 'Star Wars' movie in one year or a good 'Cleopatra' in one year. I think each of those movies takes two years probably. But I do think, as I even learned on the two 'Wonder Woman's, I already had sold a limited TV series ['I Am the Night'] that I was in love with when they decided to move the 'Wonder Woman 1984' release date up. So suddenly it was happening on top of each other. And I was actually able to write a huge treatment and have a bunch of creative meetings and go off and do my show while pre-production was happening for 'Wonder Woman 1984.' So there is a lot of ways. Certainly, until I'm on set shooting 'Star Wars,' I could be developing all sorts of other things and pushing them forward. It's actually possible. So, I think that's apparently how people do multiple things at one time, which I'm usually pretty singularly focused, but I'm getting better at this all the time."
Basically, we should expect Jenkins to be very, very busy for the next couple of years. At the time of Rogue Squadron's announcement, Kennedy made sure to mention the movie is currently scheduled for release in December 2023. This means fans can look forward to three years' worth of updates about the next big Star Wars movie in the meantime; we can't wait.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is scheduled for 2023. We'll keep you posted on Rogue Squadron as the project develops. In the meantime, get even more Disney Investor Day updates for Disney, Pixar, and Marvel Studios projects.