Star Wars announces three new films on the way, with Daisy Ridley to return as Rey

Two new Star Wars films are to go into production, it has been announced, with more details revealed of a third to follow, as the series’ maker Lucasfilm appears to be close to ending the hiatus since the 2019 release of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy made the announcement at a Star Wars Celebration event at the ExCeL centre in London.

The two new films will be overseen by the James Mangold, the director of Logan, and Dave Filoni, the co-creator of The Mandalorian TV series and director of the 2008 computer animated feature Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Kennedy said that Mangold’s movie will “tell the tale of the first Jedi to wield the Force and harness it as a liberating power in an era of chaos and oppression”, while Filoni’s film is about “the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic” and will “close out the interconnected stories told in The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and other Disney+ series”.

The third film to be announced, a project to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, has been known about for some time, but appears to have been dogged by changes of direction and staff departures. Obaid-Chinoy’s film will take place 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker and feature Daisy Ridley returning in the role of Rey; it will “tell the story of rebuilding the New Jedi Order and the powers that rise to tear it down”. Lucasfilm recently announced that Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight had replaced Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson as writers on that film.

The development of Star Wars films has had a chequered recent history, with separate projects supervised by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins reportedly shelved, and another from the Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi and 1917 co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns still in development.

At the same event, Lucasfilm confirmed a batch of new TV shows, including a second series of Andor and Mandalorian spin-off Ahsoka.