Star Wars taps Simon Kinberg to write new trilogy. But will it actually happen?
In a galaxy not so far away, at the headquarters of the empire, also known as Disney’s Burbank studios, the head honchos are cooking up another scheme.
Star Wars has confirmed Simon Kinberg will write and produce a new trilogy for the almost 50-year-old franchise.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the trio of films is not expected to take place within the Skywalker narrative universe but will instead feature new characters and stories, although crossovers with existing players have not been ruled out.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.While Kinberg is best known for his work on X-Men movies, he has dipped his toe into the Star Wars world before. He co-created with Dave Filoni the Star Wars Rebels animated series and served as a creative consultant on The Force Awakens.
Kinberg is an experienced scribe and producer in the genre space, having written the screenplays for X-Men movies The Last Stand, Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. He made his directorial debut with Dark Phoenix, which closed out the films after studio 20th Century Fox was bought by Disney.
Outside of X-Men, he also wrote Mr & Mrs Smith Jumper, Sherlock Holmes, the 2015 Fantastic Four and XXX: State of the Union, wrote and directed Netflix actioner The 355 and developed with Jordan Peele the 2019 Twilight Zone reboot.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy will produce the Star Wars trilogy alongside Kinberg.
Since the Skywalker saga ostensibly wrapped up with The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, Star Wars has had a bumpy ride on its movie side.
The Kinberg announcement of a new trilogy triggered a sense of déjà vu among fans, who have been yanked around with new Star Wars movies being announced only for them to fall through not long after.
The Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were in 2018 tapped to make a trilogy but had dropped out the following year when they signed a deal with Netflix.
Rian Johnson, who directed The Last Jedi, was also meant to be crafting a trilogy set in a corner of the Star Wars universe that had never before been explored. By 2021, and as Johnson was busy with Knives Out and its sequels, it was clear the Star Wars project had been shelved.
Technically, the trilogy hasn’t been cancelled, just on the back burner.
One of the bigger recruits into the Star Wars team was fellow Disney honcho Kevin Feige, the boss of Marvel Studios, who was said to be developing a movie with Loki writer Michael Waldron.
At the time, in 2019, Marvel was riding high in its dominance of cinema culture and Feige’s involvement was considered a coup. By 2023, the movie was dead and Kennedy claimed media reports had been overblown and that it never moved passed the early stages of production.
Other high-profile filmmakers who had been attached to a Star Wars movie at one point and are no longer also included Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins, Watchmen’s Damon Lindelof and Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro.
There was a Boba Fett-centred movie that had been in the works with Logan director James Mangold and an Obi-Wan story being developed with Stephen Daldry but both projects became streaming miniseries under the creative tutelage of someone else.
Mangold is now working on another film about the origins of the Jedi.
There’s also a Taika Waititi Star Wars movie that has been in development since 2020, but is still on the books, and Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian spin-off has morphed from a series to a film.
Only one of its many announced and mooted projects made it to production - Mandalorian & Grogu, a continuation of the popular streaming series The Mandalorian. That film is due for release in May 2026, which would make it a seven-year gap between Star Wars movies.
Two weeks ago, it emerged that British writer Steven Knight, best known for Peaky Blinders, has left the Star Wars movie that was to bring back Daisy Ridley’s Rey to the big screen. His departure has pushed back the start of production.
On the streaming side, the next Star Wars release will be Skeleton Crew, a Goonies-esque adventure that follows a group of young kids who find accidentally blast off into space and must find their way home.
