Star Wars Movie Likely Canceled For Good After Being Pulled From Schedule, Our Scoop Confirmed
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron has been removed from all Disney schedules.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron has been removed from the schedule of upcoming Disney releases, indicating that the film almost certainly has been canceled for good. This seems to be a confirmation of our earlier report that Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was in trouble and likely on the chopping block. As of now, Variety is reporting that the movie had already been removed from the Disney production schedule in 2021 and has been removed from the official Disney release schedule, where it had been earmarked for Dec. 22, 2023.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was first announced in 2020, with Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins to direct and a screenplay by Matthew Robinson. It was part of a slew of announced Star Wars projects, which included a film to be directed by Thor: Love and Thunder’s Taika Waititi, a trilogy of non-Skywalker-related movies from The Last Jedi’s Rian Johnson, and an even more unspecified movie from filmmaker J.D. Dillard. Since then, the status of Taika Waititi’s Star Wars movie has come very much in doubt, Rian Johnson is going deeper into the murder mysterverse of Knives Out, and J.D. Dillard is rumored to be in talks for a new Superman movie.
It very well may be that Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is a casualty of a sea change within the Walt Disney Company, which has increasingly come to rely on the Disney+ streaming platform for new releases. The last released Star Wars feature film was The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, which earned enormous box office grosses, but not to the level of the preceding two movies (or their critical praise). Since then, Star Wars streaming series like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett seem to have taken the place of feature film releases, with the slate of announced shows increasing proportionately to the diminishing list of feature films.
There also have been rumors of conflict between Star Wars: Rogue Squadron director Patty Jenkins and Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, which may be part of the movie disappearing from Disney schedules. Allegedly, Patty Jenkins’ commitments to two different Gal Gadot projects, Wonder Woman 3 and Cleopatra, have caused some issues with Lucasfilm, which also does not spell good things for Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Of course, Wonder Woman 3 also appears to have entered an uncertain area of development hell, with no news being issued about its script or production in some time.
We have also previously reported that Kathleen Kennedy is alleged to have shut down production entirely on all Star Wars feature films, so Star Wars: Rogue Squadron being removed from production and release schedules could very well be a kind of “soft” cancelation. It seems Star Wars fans will have to be satisfied with The Mandalorian season 3, Andor, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, The Acolyte, Tales of the Jedi, and all the rest of the Disney+ shows.
