Upcoming Star Wars Movies Canceled, Our Scoop Confirmed
Patty Jenkins and Kevin Feige's Star Wars projects have both been canceled, leaving embattled Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi as the likely next director.
Over 10 months ago GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT exclusively broke the story that an upcoming Star Wars movie, which was supposed to be directed by Wonder Woman‘s Patty Jenkins, had been canceled. Now our original report has been confirmed along with the cancelation of a lot of the other upcoming Star Wars movies that fans have been looking forward to.
Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron movie isn’t the only canceled Star Wars project. Also canceled is one from MCU architect Kevin Feige, according to the trades.
What award-winning director can actually get a Star Wars movie made if Jenkins and Feige can’t get new projects through LucasFilm for the fast-approaching 2025 release date marked in Disney‘s schedule for a new Star Wars film? As it turns out, an MCU regular thinks he has the answer, but fans will be disappointed.
Taika Waititi, director of Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder, is still working on his unnamed Star Wars project, with new reporting strongly suggesting that he also wants to star in the film. Waititi plays Korg the Rock Man in the MCU and won praise for portraying a fictional Adolf Hitler in Jojo Rabbit. Given how Love and Thunder disappointed the box office, critics, and fans, it’s understandable to be a little disappointed that he’s the most likely director for the next Star Wars feature film.
When a new film is out in theaters, it will have been six years since fans were treated to the classic line, “Somehow, Palpatine has returned.” During that time, rival sci-fi franchise Star Trek launched multiple new shows across various genres, from the animated Lower Decks to the instant classic Strange New Worlds and the rapidly improving Picard. Though not everyone will agree with Paramount’s decisions regarding Gene Roddenberry’s franchise, at least there’s a consistent vision guiding the occasional misstep, while every report for the past year points to Star Wars being in total disarray behind the scenes.
Kathleen Kennedy has been in charge of LucasFilm for over a decade, overseeing the Daisy Ridley-led trilogy of films and the pivot to streaming. With a few successes under her belt, the failures have added up, and the damage has been so extensive no one behind the scenes knows how to recover. In a recent poll run on the Giant Freakin Robot Twitter account, fan enthusiasm for the future of Star Wars lagged behind Marvel and DC, while it was within a percentage point of Star Trek.
Star Wars is suffering from greatly lowered expectations as, at one time, every release was a big deal and a cultural event. With so long between movies and no coherent vision guiding the development of the franchise, it’s in danger of dropping to post-Revenge of the Sith levels of popularity. Is Taika Waititi the answer to what ails the galaxy far, far away?
