Star Wars’ Big Rey Announcement Took The Internet By Storm, But Apparently The Script’s Not Even Ready Yet

Star Wars is a wildly popular franchise that has been entertaining audiences for decades. Generations of moviegoers were brought up on the galaxy far, far away, resulting in a powerful force of hardcore fans. Those fans lost their minds when Lucasfilm announced the new trilogy of movies, which will include Daisy Ridley’s return to the franchise as Rey Skywalker. And while Star Wars’ big Rey announcement ook the internet by storm, apparently the script’s not even ready yet. Let’s break it all down.

Since the release of The Rise of Skwyalker, there haven’t been any new Star Wars flicks in theaters or even in production. And after patiently waiting, three developing movies were officially announced at the Star Wars Celebration, including Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s movie about Rey forming a new Jedi order. Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy spoke to Yahoo! UK about that upcoming Star Wars movie, and got honest about just how far long that project is, saying:

We’ve been working on that [film] for a few years and all of that feeds into our overall storytelling. So we’ve just got to a point now where we’ve got a wonderful writer in Steven Knight, he’s come on board and we’re going to see a script probably in the next month and a half that we’ve been working on for quite a while. So we’re getting close.

There you have it. Despite the news about Rey’s return basically breaking the internet, there’s still a ton of work to be done. First and foremost the script needs to be completed, before other stages of the pre-production process move forward. But at least Kennedy seems to think it’s almost done.

Since the Skywalker Saga officially ended with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, fans have been curious to see exactly how the sci-fi property will continue its life in theaters. The next movies will be set in three different parts of the timeline, and should presumably allow for the filmmakers to make bolder narrative choices. After all, they won’t have to worry about the overall narrative of a trilogy of projects.

Later in that same interview with Yahoo! UK, Kathleen Kennedy explained how the franchise ended up landing on a project that’s all about Rey forming a new Jedi order. It turns out that the studio always wanted to explore what happened in the galaxy after Episode IX, although it was a matter of how. As she put it,

It’s such an evolution of conversations that we have all the time and we knew coming off of The Rise of Skywalker that we needed to take that further. We just didn’t know how far out; we didn’t know exactly what the story might be – but now we have a much better idea.

Over the past few years fans have been hoping to see the stars of the sequel trilogy return to Star Wars, either on the small or silver screens. Daisy Ridley will be back as Rey, although there are countless questions about what that developing project will entail. Specifically, fans are curious to see if her co-stars also return; will Adam Driver’s Ben Solo be back as a Force Ghost, or could John Boyega’s Finn finally train to be a Jedi himself? Only time will tell.

In addition to the Daisy Ridley movie, there are two other exciting Star Wars movies in the development stage. One will be helmed by Logan director James Mangold, and will feature the dawn of the original Jedi order. Another will come from Dave Filoni, and will wrap up the story of the Mando-verse.

None of these Star Wars movies currently have a release date. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

Corey Chichizola
Movies Editor

Corey was born and raised in New Jersey. Graduated with degrees theater and literature from Ramapo College of New Jersey. After working in administrative theater for a year in New York, he started as the Weekend Editor at CinemaBlend. He's since been able to work himself up to reviews, phoners, and press junkets-- and is now able to appear on camera with some of his favorite actors... just not as he would have predicted as a kid. He's particularly proud of covering horror franchises like Scream and Halloween, as well as movie musicals like West Side Story. Favorite interviews include Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Jamie Lee Curtis, and more.