Star Wars: Disney Cancels Two Planned Films

When "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" was released in 2019, many fans were expecting more. Despite grossing more than $1 billion, "Star Wars: Episode 9" was not quite a huge success with critical audiences. As we learned this week, some upcoming projects have now been scrapped entirely. It remains uncertain what Disney's further schedule will look like after the end of the Skywalker saga.

As Variety reports, two planned "Star Wars" movies have been shelved: The "Rogue Squadron" movie by Patty Jenkins and an unknown movie by Kevin Feige are affected. Both expressed interest in the past in directing a movie of the world-famous franchise. However, this will now no longer be the case: Jenkins' movie was officially announced in late 2020 and should have premiered at the end of the year. The focus would likely have been Skywalker and his X-wing attack force. At the end of 2022, Jenkins tweeted that she was still working on the project, but didn't know how likely it was to come to fruition.

There was considerably less information about the film by Marvel mastermind Kevin Feige. Neither title, story nor cast were known about the project, which is probably why it never made it past an early production stage. Only the screenwriter Michael Waldron was known, though he now has his hands full with "Loki" Season 2 and "Avengers: Secret Wars". Let alone MCU boss Feige, who is very busy as well. The movie is probably not completely off the table yet, but we shouldn't get our hopes up in the next few years.

Things are looking better for the potential next film in the "Star Wars" series: This one is by "Thor: Love and Thunder" director Taika Waititi and is said to be progressing comparatively well. The script has not been finalized yet, but they are at least working on it. In addition, we can look forward to Waititi not only working behind the camera, but also in front of it, since the 47-year-old will also play a part as an actor.

It is also a possibility that a film by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will be released first. The "Ms. Marvel" director is slated to direct a "Star Wars" film as well, while "World War Z" writer Damon Lindelof and "Counterpart" writer Justin Britt-Gibson are in charge of the script. So despite the cancellation of two films, there's definitely still a lot going on behind the scenes of "Star Wars" and we are looking forward to more news about the franchise's next feature film.