Last Thursday during Disney's Investors Day, Patty Jenkins was announced as the director of a Star Wars movie we hadn't even realized was in the works at Lucasfilm, Rogue Squadron. The Wonder Woman 1984 filmmaker has already revealed that the project is coming together nicely, and has now explained exactly how she came aboard the film during an interview with Yahoo.
Jenkins has a deep personal connection to the story, since her father was a Silver Star Air Force captain and fighter pilot who lost his life during a mock dogfight when she was just 7 years old. So, when she found out that Kathleen Kennedy and co. wanted her for Rogue Squadron, she saw it as a huge honor.
“What happened was [Lucasfilm] just approached me and [asked] would I ever be interested and I said it would really depend on what the story was,” Jenkins explained. “I just always want to make sure that I feel I can make an amazing movie. And when they said Rogue Squadron I almost gasped. Because I couldn’t believe that they were so wise to know and somehow intuit that that’s exactly what I’ve been dying to do for so long because of my past and growing up around fighter pilots. It really is a movie I’ve been dying to make. I spent years trying to make a movie about Chuck Yeager. So this is just a huge honor to get to take this on.”
Jenkins became the first woman to take the helm of a major studio superhero movie with 2017's Wonder Woman, and she will soon repeat that accolade as the first female director to step behind the camera for a Star Wars film. Pressure? Sure... but Nothing she can't handle.
“I feel a huge amount of pressure to make a great Star Wars film, of course. The fan base is amazing and massive and that’s no small task. That’s really what I think about,” said Jenkins. “But luckily [Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984] were not no pressure, either. So I’ve gotten pretty used to the fact that there’s really nothing you can do about it. You just have to try to make a great film and really be diligent about keeping your eye on the ball and always making sure you’re thinking about everything. So I will carry forward and try to make a great movie.”
Jenkins recently revealed that Rogue Squadron would tell an original story while still taking influence from the various books and games that feature the ace X-Wing pilots. The movie is currently set to blast into theaters on December 25, 2023.