Star Wars' troubled Rey movie continues to stumble in development, potentially pointing to a greater problem plaguing Lucasfilm as a whole.
Originally announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023, the upcoming Rey film will see Daisy Ridley jump back into the saddle as her central Jedi from the Sequel Trilogy.
While many had assumed that of the three movies announced at Star Wars Celebration, the Rey movie would be the first to see the light of day (simply because it had an actress and director attached to it), that does not look to be the case, as the film has continually tripped over its own at every turn.
The Rey Movie Falters Again
After months of questions about the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Rey movie, the upcoming Star Wars film received yet another disappointing update, further playing into Lucasfilm's biggest problem in its current form.
According to reporting from insider John Rocha, the writer behind the Rey movie, Steven Knight (of Peaky Blinders fame), has exited the project seemingly because of a conflict of vision between Knight and the Lucasfilm higher-ups.
Rocha added that he had heard Knight had left the project sometime in August because of what he called "nonstop issues and notes" after writing "4+ versions of the script" in the last 18 months or so:
"BREAKING: Steven Knight is OUT as the writer of the #StarWars Rey film!!
I saw this coming after my sources told me on August 23rd (as you can see below) that Knight had passed in 4+ versions of the script, but Lucasfilm found 'nonstop issues and notes' with all of them. He was apparently done with the process. So it’s no surprise that he finally left.
This may be why we’ve started to hear that Mangold’s Jedi film might start shooting early next year. Frustration, madness, and dysfunctional approaches still seem to be the way of things at Star Wars and Lucasfilm lately."
This comes as Knight was brought onto the project in early 2023 after Watchmen writer Damon Lindelof left the film as well. That means in just under two years, the movie has already cycled through two different writing teams and is in the process of searching for a third.
Word is that Lucasfilm is having trouble with what it wants the Rey film to be, and that has played greatly into the turmoil it has seen during development.
After first being announced as a fairly stand-alone project centered on Daisy Ridley's Jedi and the New Jedi Order, word is that Lucasfilm and the powers that be at Disney may be shifting their priorities for the movie, perhaps hoping to jumpstart a new franchise within the Star Wars universe.
This was evidenced by recent quotes from Ridley, who referred to the "new one/new ones" when talking about her new movie in a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter:
"I feel like the new one/new ones will be so interesting. Time has passed, and a lot has changed for me, personally, so it’ll be interesting to come back to someone who I know so well, but in such a different moment,” Ridley says. “For me to inhabit Rey again after all the time that we haven’t seen her, it’s actually scary, but it’s also exciting."
And despite the film's bumpy road so far, Ridley has remained positive. In a recent podcast appearance on Happy Sad Confused, the Star Wars actress even went as far as to tease that news on the new film is "imminent," potentially hinting that things may not be as dire as they may seem.
However, that has not stopped a greater issue from further presenting itself in the halls of Lucasfilm.
The Bigger Problem at Lucasfilm
Of course, this is anything but an official confirmation of the problems that have befallen the Rey film. However, looking at Lucasfilm's recent past, it would make sense that this feeling of indecisiveness may have scared someone like Steven Knight off.
The biggest problem that Lucasfilm and the Star Wars brand have in their current state is this flip-flopping nature that has seemingly driven creatives off.
Since Disney acquired Lucasfilm, it has dropped literal dozens of filmmakers because their visions did not line up with that of the current corporate strategy (read more about fired Star Wars filmmakers here).
Because Lucasfilm has seemingly been unwavering in its vision for the brand versus that of the creative trying to make their Star Wars project happen within the franchise, filmmakers have not been shy in leaving behind the sci-fi universe and moving on to other ventures.
It is these corporate vs creative politics that could potentially scare off future filmmakers from ever even wanting to engage with Star Wars in the first place.
Star Wars is in a weird place. After more than half a decade since its last theatrical release, lackluster creative reception for its last handful of projects, and an ever-tightening financial belt at Disney, Lucasfilm has been gunshy with anything related to the Star Wars universe.
The studio knows that it cannot have a Star Wars movie come out and flop, or else the brand may never truly recover.
That is why the first Star Wars movie back in theaters is set to be The Mandalorian and Grogu (which fans saw a glimpse of at D23). The Mandalorian as a sub-franchise has proven to be one of the few mainstream successes Lucasfilm has seen since 2019.
It makes sense, from a business perspective, why Disney and the Lucasfilm brass have put so much effort into the Mando movie, knowing that the creative team behind it will likely want to shake the boat up too significantly and that people will come out for it.
However, there is a difference between being measured in one's approach and actively stunting the creative possibility of a particular project.
Sometimes, it is best to let the creative process run wild a little bit with minimal corporate meddling. Without that sort of creative freedom, titles like Star Wars in the first place would never have happened to begin with.
One could argue that it is this digging in of the corporate heels that led Star Wars to this complicated place to begin with.
Following the divisive release that was Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the financial flop that was Solo, the Lucasfilm higher-ups grabbed hold of the Star Wars wheel and forced their way into the creative process behind the oft-maligned Rise of Skywalker.
It was after this that Lucasfilm and Star Wars went into a period of soul searching, one that fans still find the brand in now.
When Disney bought Lucasfilm, the vision was simple: continue the story left by Star Wars creator George Lucas with another trilogy. Now that the Sequels are done, though, the Star Wars franchise has no north star for the corporate and creative sides of the business to point themselves at.
If Lucasfilm can take a step back and let these creatives do their work, then success may follow. Of course, notes will come. One does not buy an IP for billions of dollars to sit back idly and forgo their say in it.
The entertainment industry is a marriage between the commercial and the creative, with no one side taking too much power over the other. Part of the job of Lucasfilm is to have a vision for the franchise, find creatives to fulfill that vision, and then let them run free.
However, how can one even try to have success with that vision when the people who call the shots are constantly changing it?
Yes, this 'leaving the creative to it' strategy may not always work (just look at the recently canceled Acolyte series), but Star Wars has proven that it is at its best when filmmakers have the authority and trust to fulfill their vision for the franchise with adjacent support of the studio team.
The Rey movie currently has no public release date.
