Numerous rumors are making the rounds for Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daisy Ridley’s Rey or New Jedi Order film that was officially announced last year at Star Wars Celebration.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: (L-R) Daisy Ridley, Kathleen Kennedy and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy attend the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney)
World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy recently reported the entire film might be indefinitely delayed due to creative differences with screenwriter Steven Knight.
He shared, “I’ve been told that Disney has delayed the film ‘indefinitely’, which is why they surprised everyone last week and decided to announce The Mandalorian & Grogu as the next Star Wars movie.”
Ruimy adds, “They just don’t have confidence that New Jedi Order will be happening in the near future.”
Daisy Ridley as Rey in The Last Jedi (2017), Lucasfilm
He then explained why, “The problems seems to reside in creative differences between screenwriter Steven Knight and LucasFilm. I’m told that a draft had originally been written for the film, but LucasFilm gave him so many notes that he had to start from scratch.”
Given this, Ruimy is hearing Knight might exit the project explaining, “His frustrations have grown, he’s put Star Wars on the backburner and is now focused on the screenplay for his Peaky Blinders movie, which is supposed to go into production in the fall.”
Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Lucasfilm
Gizmodo’s Germain Lussier, who was instrumental in announcing the canceling of Gina Carano by Lucasfilm as documented by Price of Reason, claims Ruimy’s report is completely false.
He says, “Well, that’s not true, according to Lucasfilm. A source at the company told io9 the report is inaccurate and Knight continues to write and be a part of the process. In fact, the company is waiting on his latest draft as you read this.”
Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Lucasfilm
Now, a new rumor from WDW Pro claims the film indeed has a script, in fact, the scooper previously shared at least two potential scripts had already been turned in for the film, but that the film might get dumped on Disney+ where they can hide its inevitable failure.
WDW Pro shared during the WDW Pro Show on his YouTube channel, “We’ve been reporting on this channel that we think it is rather likely that Rey could be going to Disney+ because it can’t make it at the box office. They cannot open it up to that level of scrutiny because we don’t see any path forward for them to manage to make money off this thing. And that would be incredibly embarrassing to them.”
He added, “We’ve also been reporting that Rey cannot carry a movie on her own. And so the only Star Wars character remaining that they could strap on this movie is baby Grogu, little baby Yoda. The problem with that is they will have to age him up. And the problem with that is they need to wrap up The Mandalorian story to strap him on to there.
WDW Pro previously reported that Disney executives were squeamish about a Rey film especially after the financial failure of The Marvels. The Brie Larson-led film did not even gross $200 million at the global box office despite racking up a production budget of over $274 million that does not include reshoots in 2023 nor marketing costs.
He detailed, “It looks like according to this source that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is being very public and positioning this as, ‘She is a woman of color, it’s time for her to be in charge.’ That she’s being so forthright in this kind of DEI language in order to protect the film from being cut even more drastically.”
“And what is being alleged is that The Walt Disney Company — although I cannot prove this independently — that The Walt Disney Company, many of the higher ups are extremely squeamish. And squeamish is the word that was sent my way in regards to the viability of this film. They’re quite nervous,” he added.
The scooper also revealed potential plot details for the film, “There are two iterations of the Rey script that I am aware of that I can talk about according to rumor. And those iterations of the script that I have been told existed. Folks, I haven’t seen the script. I don’t have any hard proof of this, but again when it comes from someone who helped us tell you that the Rey movie was coming I take it pretty seriously.”
He relayed, “So there are two iterations of the Rey script that I am aware of that I can talk about according to rumor. And those are apparently early on in development the idea was that Rey would be pregnant with a child and that offscreen she would have become pregnant somehow through the Force ghost of Kylo Ren in a way that would have been explained but not presented on screen. They could not have Rey be pregnant with any other person than Kylo Ren and that was to placate the Reylo fans out there and then the story was going to push forward to when her child was about nine years old, a daughter. And that daughter was going to be training in the New Jedi Temple with Rey and with the other Padawans. That this nine-year-old daughter was going to combine the light and the dark and form a new type of Jedi.”
He continued, “And then they were going to face off against … is it Darth Plagueis… Well, apparently he was going to be back. And so that was the first iteration of the script.”
Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
As far as the second script, he shared his belief that it was the one done by Steven Knight. As far as its plot details, WDW Pro stated, “That one, where Disney became involved, that involved Rey and Finn fighting against a villain, a new villain, who was a combination of a Nightsister and a Sith. So a Sith who had learned to take on the powers of the Nightsisters and combined the Force with the magic of the witches. And that Rey and Finn would be combined together to take on that foe.”
He continued, “I’m also told that Grogu would make a cameo in both of these, but that Grogu had been scaled back dramatically due to needing to save him for the Mandalorian movie and because of the change in production and releases related to the strikes that were going on.”
(L-R): Din Grogu, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Captain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season three, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
“Now, where this became problematic is that apparently the executives took a look at this and they felt that this was too Marvel,” he said. “And that’s the quote that I’ve got here, ‘Too Marvel.’ And the reason is it felt like it was a side quest adventure. It did not feel like this was a bigger thing than what had happened in the prior three movies. And so it came off, you know, without the wind in the sails.”
“The issue there I’m told is that there’s frustration on the side of Lucasfilm,” he continued. “Usually, I don’t defend Lucasfilm. In this case, I will. They can’t figure out a way to make a story bigger than what happened at the end of Rise of Palpatine with, you know, all that happened on that planet with the ships rising out. They don’t know how to make something bigger than that. Frankly I hope they don’t. But that’s where the Disney execs came in. They looked at the script. I’m told they were not pleased. They did not like whatever this was. And I don’t know any further granularity to what was in the script.”
Daisy Ridley as Rey in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Lucasfilm
A press release announced the film revealing the movie is “set 15 years after the last events of the Skywalker Saga. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy will tell the story of rebuilding the New Jedi Order and the powers that rise to tear it down; the director then delighted fans by welcoming Daisy Ridley to stage, confirming she will be reprising her beloved role as Rey in the upcoming movie.”
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy would provide more details to IGN at Star Wars Celebration in April 2023, “We’re 15 years out from Rise of Skywalker. So we’re kind of post-war, post-First Order and the Jedi are in disarray. And there’s a lot of discussion around who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what’s the state of the galaxy? And she’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based on the books, based on what she promised Luke.”
Kennedy concluded, “So that’s where we’re going.”
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Kathleen Kennedy onstage during the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 attends the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
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She also shared details to Entertainment Weekly’s Dagobah Dispatch, ““We’ve been talking a lot about going well into the past and one of the things that’s really knitting this all together, obviously, are the Jedi. What happened with the Jedi overtime, much like history? How did the Jedi evolve? They were wiped out with Order 66 then they gradually have been coming back. The question that we’re going to ask with New Jedi Order and with Rey is: Does the galaxy need them anymore? Do they want them back?”
“So there’s a lot of food for thought in what we’re doing whether it’s in the past, present, or future,” she said.
LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 07: Kathleen Kennedy onstage during the Andor studio panel at the Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)
To Games Radar she relayed, “I think what’s always great about Star Wars is it’s a big galaxy, and we’re coming off what was a major war with the First Order. And now, Rey has made a promise to Luke and that’s really the core of where we’re going and what this story will be.”
She continued, “And I think it offers just tremendous opportunity to introduce new characters and start with something fresh, because we culminated with what George [Lucas] was creating, and now we take all of that and move it to the next chapter.”
These themes are supposed to tie-in to the announced James Mangold film. Kennedy explained, “It was something that Jim [Mangold] immediately sparked to, and I think it’s a really nice compliment to what we’re doing with moving into the future with Rey, and then understanding a bit more of where this all came from. Because it will be at the heart of creating the new Jedi Order, so to get a real sense of where that might have began with the dawn of the Jedi could be pretty cool.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: Kathleen Kennedy arrives at the special 3-episode launch event for Lucasfilm’s original series Andor at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on September 15, 2022. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
A previously leaked synopsis from Issue 1335 of Production Weekly stated, “Set roughly 15 years after Rey’s victory over Palpatine at the end of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
“The sequel delves into Rey’s courageous endeavor to restore the Jedi Order, where she assumes the role of a mentor to two promising young students – a girl and a boy. As her training progresses, it becomes evident that the girl possesses extraordinary abilities, destined to emerge as the future leader,” the synopsis concluded.
Daisy Ridley as Rey and Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa in The Last Jedi (2017), Lucasfilm
What do you make of this new rumor that the film could go straight to Disney+ rather than get a theatrical release?
