Somehow, 'Star Wars: Rogue Squadron' Never Died

A year and a half after being taken off the release schedule, it seems its death was greatly exaggerated

Director Patty Jenkins, best known for her duo of Wonder Woman movies for the previous DC Extended Universe, has revealed that she is still working on the screenplay for Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Attached as far back as Disney Investor Day 2020, the film was thought by professionals and the public alike to have been scrapped when it was pulled from the release schedule in September 2022, and then reported not to be in active development around the time of Star Wars Celebration Europe last spring.

Jenkins declared so herself during her appearance on Talking Pictures: A Movie Memories Podcast by Max and TCM. She originally had stepped away to focus on Wonder Woman 3 at DC Studios before it fell apart and James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe took hold, leaving the incarnation of Wonder Woman behind entirely. Jenkins said soon after that collapse in December 2022 that Lucasfilm and Disney crafted a her new deal on Rogue Squadron. The project is dear to her heart, as she’s using her Air Force fighter pilot father Capt. Williams T. Jenkins who served during the Vietnam War as a major inspiration to shape the story. Apparently this is not a resuscitation or anything of the sort, it’s just been stable and staying afloat the entire time.

Jenkins, most recently a producer on Chris Pine’s directorial debut Poolman, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, detailed what’s going on thusly:

So, when I left Star Wars to do Wonder Woman 3, I thought maybe I’ll come back to Star Wars after Wonder Woman 3. So, we did a deal for that to happen, started a deal, but I thought I was doing Wonder Woman. When that went away, Lucasfilm and I were like, oh, we gotta finish this deal. We finished the deal right as the strike was happening.

So I now owe a draft of Star Wars and so we will see what happens there. You know, like, who knows?. And so we will see what happens there. You know, like, who knows? It’s hard, they have a hard job in front of them of what’s the first movie they’re gonna do. They have other directors who have been working, but I am now, you know, I’m back on doing Rogue Squadron and we’ll see what happens. We need to develop, you know, get it to where we’re both super happy with it.

At the moment, there are four other Star Wars movies being worked on, including The Mandalorian and Grogu, continuing their Disney+-born story on the big screen, directed by Jon Favreau, coming in 2026. There’s also a “biblical epic” about the first Jedi and the birth of the force inspired by Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments directed by James Mangold, and Sharmain Obaid-Chinoy continuing Rey Skywalker’s story 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker with Daisy Ridley returning, and Ridley’s been talking about that quite a bit lately. While the Star Wars-reserved spots on Disney’s release schedule are known, placements are not, so Rogue Squadron is at least on the same footing as the peers that might seem farther along than it in that regard.

Source: Deadline