Patty Jenkins’ Star Wars: Rogue Squadron Movie Has Been Indefinitely Delayed

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was not too long ago being cited as the next Star Wars film expected to hit theaters in December 2023, with production expected to begin at the end of this year and filming kicking off early in 2022. However the latest intergalactic spin-off from the world’s biggest sci-fi franchise has been hit with an indefinite delay thanks to a suggestion that creative differences between Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and Lucasfilm have led to a rift that may not be possible to get through and could see some massive changes coming to the production line up of the movie.

The Hollywood Reporter editor Matthew Belloni reports that Jenkins has become hugely unhappy with the way certain Lucasfilm bosses have been micromanaging the process, and has now decided to move on to helm other projects while Lucasfilm decide what they want to do going forward. Whether this is something that proves to be temporary is yet to be seen, but for now it looks like the movie is stuck in a limbo that could last quite a while.

Of course it is no secret that the minds behind the biggest Disney-owned franchises such as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars Universe are pretty intense when it comes to making sure that everything is perfectly in line with their expectations and that leads to some often tight constraints being put on the filmmakers who take on the task for directing movies and TV series in those lucrative and much-protected franchises.

“That’s not unusual, of course, but it’s a laughably recurring problem at Lucasfilm under president Kathleen Kennedy, say agents: Top filmmakers are dying to make a Star Wars movie—until they sign on and experience the micromanagement and plot-point-by-committee process,” Belloni wrote his most recent newsletter.

He continued, “It happened to the Game of Thrones guys, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who were hired to create a new trilogy but bailed. It also happened to Rian Johnson, writer and director of 2017’s The Last Jedi, whose own planned trilogy was shelved. Jenkins wasn’t willing to dick around, and she has other projects, notably Wonder Woman 3 at Warner Bros., where she enjoys more creative freedom.”

Jenkins has made a big think about female led movies and creating strong female characters in her Wonder Woman series of movies for Warner Bros. and DC, and as the first female director of a Star Wars movie it looked like she was going to continue the fight for woman in the industry. At the time of the movie’s announcement and last update, Jenkins was still very much in the zone to take on the challenge.

“It’s going amazing,” Jenkins told The Hollywood Reporter. “I had been on it already for six months before I even announced that, so we’re pretty deep into it. We’re finishing a script, crewing up, and it’s all going wonderful. I’m so excited about the story and excited that we’re the next chapter of Star Wars, which is such a responsibility and such an opportunity to really start some new things. It’s really exciting in that way.”

What exactly has broken down since then is unclear, but she is certainly not alone as someone who has come into and left a Star Wars project as noted in Belloni’s piece. Whether these issues can be resolved amicably for Jenkins to continue is something that we will just have to wait and see, but if it turns out to be irreconcilable, then the bad news for {Star Wars} fans could lead to good news for Wonder Woman fans who could then see Gal Gadot’s DC heroine return sooner than expected. This comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.

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