In April 2023, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Logan director James Mangold hit the stage at Star Wars Celebration in London and revealed his plans to head into a Galaxy Far, Far Away for a story about the First Jedi.
While it's been revealed that this untitled Star Wars movie - typically referred to as "Dawn of the Jedi" - will be set roughly 25,000 years before the events of The Phantom Menace, few updates have been shared since. That's likely because it's had to compete with both A Complete Unknown and Swamp Thing for the filmmaker's attention.
Doing the rounds to promote his Bob Dylan biopic, Mangold told MovieWeb, "To me, the really important aspects are the freedom to make something new. Beau Willimon and I, in relation to Star Wars, have been working on a script, and we'll see what happens. Do we find a way on the page to say something original?"
That is a major challenge with a franchise like this and it's something many feel Mangold failed to achieve with the final Indiana Jones movie.
However, a big part of what sets his Star Wars story apart from others is when it's set. "The Star Wars movie would be taking place 25,000 years before any known Star Wars movies takes place," he explained. "It's an area and a playground that I've always [wanted to explore] and that I was inspired by as a teenager."
"I'm not that interested in being handcuffed by so much lore at this point that it's almost immovable, and you can't please anybody," he added, suggesting his plan is to avoid being tied to the wider franchise.
Mangold isn't wrong here but if he fumbles the ball and delivers an origin story for the Jedi that doesn't sit well with fans, he might still face risk facing their wrath. Fortunately for him, this setting will likely be so different that it will be tricky to find much to complain about.
Whether Star Wars is still, well, Star Wars without those familiar locations and characters is hotly debated, particularly after The Acolyte - which took place hundreds of years before The Phantom Menace - struggled to strike a chord with viewers on Disney+. Does this origin story run the risk of being too different? Time will tell.
Last summer, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Acolyte producer Simon Emanuel potentially revealed a new title for a movie we've been referring to as Dawn of the Jedi.
"James Mangold's Jedi Prime is set thousands and thousands of years before [the original trilogy]," he said, "and I'm really excited to see what happens there."
Not only is Jedi Prime a pretty cool name, but it may have major implications for the movie itself. The Prime Jedi first appeared in the form of a mosaic in 2017's Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The image was created by concept artist Seth Engstrom and inspired by the Taoist iconography of yin and yang, the balance between dualities.
All we know is that the Prime Jedi was the first Jedi to use the Force and founded the Jedi Order on Ahch-To. This is the character Mangold will focus on and is someone Lucasfilm has seemingly wanted to reveal more about for a while now.
Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi doesn't have a confirmed release date, though we don't anticipate seeing it in theaters until 2027 or 2028 at the earliest.