At Star Wars Celebration earlier this year, it was revealed that the canon on the big screen will soon delve into both the future and past in regards to the franchise timeline. A film centered on Daisy Ridley's Rey will be taking audiences to a time beyond the period featured in the Sequel Trilogy, while James Mangold's developing feature will be about the origins of the Jedi. Given their distinct settings, one might not think that there would be much connective tissue between them, but that won't actually be the case, according to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.
The executive/producer recently spoke with GamesRadar about the blockbuster announcements that were made during the Star Wars convention in London, England this past spring, and she spoke to how there is a link between director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Rey film and the developing James Mangold movie. They may be set many, many years apart, but they are connected in a special way through their subject matter. She explained,
It was something that Jim [Mangold] immediately sparked to, and I think it's a really nice compliment to what we're doing with moving into the future with Rey, and then understanding a bit more of where this all came from. Because it will be at the heart of creating the new Jedi Order, so to get a real sense of where that might have began with the dawn of the Jedi could be pretty cool.
In the film centered on Rey, the heroine will be featured picking up the torch that was passed to her by Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker: after the fall of the First Order, she will work to train a new generation of Jedi. That story, of course, will be built on the history of the order that Rey knows about (remember that she saved the ancient Jedi texts in Star Wars: The Last Jedi), and that history begins with the tale that writer/director James Mangold will be telling in what may end up being his follow-up to Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.
With these two projects being in-the-works at the same time, it will be fascinating to see how they end up functioning in parallel... though there may be some trickiness involved in making sure that the work doesn't feel repetitious. What should fortunately help that is the fact that Kathleen Kennedy is promising plenty of "new" in the Rey-centric feature.
Discussing what she refers to as launching the next chapter for the Star Wars franchise, Kennedy says,
I think what's always great about Star Wars is it's a big galaxy, and we're coming off what was a major war with the First Order. And now, Rey has made a promise to Luke and that's really the core of where we're going and what this story will be. And I think it offers just tremendous opportunity to introduce new characters and start with something fresh, because we culminated with what George [Lucas] was creating, and now we take all of that and move it to the next chapter.
Excited as fans are to see what will end up defining said next chapter of the Star Wars universe, the "when" of it all remains a bit of a mystery. We're regularly seeing new Disney+ shows from the franchise arrive on the streaming service (Ahsoka will premiere later this summer, followed by Star Wars: Skeleton Crew at some point in the fall), but no formal announcements have been made regarding big screen release dates. In addition to the Rey movie and the Jedi origins film not having set distribution plans, the same is also true for the project currently being developed by canon maestro Dave Filoni (who has previously teased his vision with a tip of the hat to Revenge Of The Sith).
You can keep track of all of the projects now in the works from the franchise – including those both for Disney+ and cinemas – by checking out our Upcoming Star Wars Movies and TV guide. And for those wanting to read about the canon's big screen past, you can read our Star Wars movies ranking.
