Rumors have been doing the rounds that Lucasfilm's upcoming Rey-focused Star Wars movie may have been delayed indefinitely, but updates now suggest that the project is still moving forward as planned.
Several sites have now reached out to Lucasfilm, who has confirmed that the untitled film is very much on track, with Steven Knight still on board as writer despite clams of the Peaky Blinders creator encountering some "creative differences" over his story ideas.
Of course, the studio could simply be downplaying these reports of behind-the-scenes turmoil, but it seems there's a chance a release date has already been set.
Jeff Sneider responded to a Tweet about the potential delay with the following.
He doesn't specify which project he's talking about here, but during last night's episode of The Hot Mic, he strongly hinted that he was indeed referring to the "New Jedi Order" film.
Last year, Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy revealed that work on this movie is further along than we realized.
"We’ve been working on that film for a few years and all of that feeds into our overall storytelling. So we’ve just got to a point now where we’ve got a wonderful writer in Steven Knight, and we’re probably going to see a script in the next month and a half that we’ve been working on for quite a while. So we’re getting close."
It's worth noting that this was prior to the Hollywood strikes, which no doubt had at least some impact on the movie's development.
We do know that the Rey film won't be the next big-screen Star Wars release, as we recently got confirmation that The Mandalorian and Grogu will officially enter production later this year.
“I have loved telling stories set in the rich world that George Lucas created,” said director Favreau. “The prospect of bringing the Mandalorian and his apprentice Grogu to the big screen is extremely exciting.”
Daisy Ridley will reprise her role as Rey "Skywalker" for director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's movie, which will be set a whole fifteen years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. Plot details are still mostly under wraps, but we do know that Rey will be a "powerful Jedi master" running her own training academy when we catch up with her.