Lucasfilm Announces New Star Wars Film Focused On Daisy Ridley’s Rey, Appears She Will Continue To Completely Supplant Luke Skywalker’s Story

John F. Trent |

Apr 8, 2023

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)

Lucasfilm continues to confirm to long-time Star Wars fans that the company is creatively bankrupt as the company recently announced they will be making a new Star Wars film focused on Daisy Ridley’s Rey.

This new film will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and according to an official blog it will “feature Daisy Ridley back as Rey as she builds a new Jedi Order.”

A press release stated, “Kennedy then revealed that “Star Wars” will head into the future, with a new feature 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 spoke with IGN following the film’s announcement and provided some more details on how the film came about.

Kennedy detailed, “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.”

Kennedy was then asked by IGN’s Alex Stedman, “You mentioned Luke and I think he almost seemed like almost a cautionary tale in the most recent trilogy. Will we see any of that play with Rey at all?”

Kennedy responded, “I don’t know [if] we’ll spend a lot of time in flashbacks, or Force ghosts, or things like that, but certainly the spirit of what he represents to her is going to be significant.”

Later in the interview, Kennedy claimed the film has been in the works for multiple years. She said, “As far as Sharmeen, we’ve been working on that for a couple of years already.”

This announcement confirms rumors that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was working on a film that would feature Disney’s sequel trilogy characters. Deadline’s Justin Kroll reported back in October that Damon Lindelof was co-writing the film’s script and Obaid-Chinoy had been tapped to direct the film.

However, even before Kroll made these claims, Richard Rushfield at The Ankler back in March 2022 noted that Lindelof was “working on a Star Wars film for Lucasfilm.”

The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit would elaborate on Kroll’s initial claims and reveal Lindelof was writing the film with Justin Britt-Gibson albeit Kit also detailed he joined the film “after a secret writers room” had already been working on it since Star Wars Celebration 2022.

Kit would also claim, “Sources say that the story would take place after the events of 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, although it would not be a continuation of the Skywalker saga. It could, however, feature some of the characters from the Star Wars trilogy made in the 2010s.”

Furthermore he said the film would be a stand-alone movie, but depending on how well it does at the box office it could lead to other projects.

Lindelof would seemingly exit the project just last month telling SlashFilm, “I will just say, that for reasons that I can’t get into on this Sunday morning, on this day, the degree of difficulty is extremely, extremely, extremely high. If it can’t be great, it shouldn’t exist.”

He continued, “That’s all I’ll say, because I have the same association with it as you do, which is, it’s the first movie I saw sitting in my dad’s lap, four years old, May of ’77. I think it’s possible that sometimes when you hold something in such high reverence and esteem, you start to get in the kitchen and you just go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.’ We’ll just leave it at that point.”

This announcement also lends credence to a rumor from scooper WDW Pro in February who reported Rey would return. He claimed, “I’m told that Disney is going to bring back Rey.”

He went on to add, “This contact, this source tells me that the reason that they are going to potentially bring Rey back is to test it out. Put out a big merchandising push with a theatrical release to go along with it and find out: can Rey invigorate Star Wars with a number of other characters around her.”

The scooper would later go on to reveal the film would prominently feature R2-D2 and Chewbacca, but would also try to incorporate The Mandalorian’s Baby Yoda or Grogu into the project.

He explained, “Rey is the character who leads it all. She’s the one that they want to pin this on and try to revive it. If it doesn’t work they are willing to go back and scrap, but Rey is there.”

“Chewbacca is back. I am told Chewbacca is in this,” he continued. “R2-D2, number three is what I am told. Number four is a brand new character.”

He then revealed Grogu is part of this plan as well, “The idea is that somehow Grogu is going to unite with Rey in the next movie if they can work out all the contracts, if they can get Daisy Ridley back that Grogu will be apart of it along with R2, Chewie, and a brand new character.”

Aside from this official announcement at Star Wars Celebration 2023 confirming many of these rumors, the description of the film also appears to continue Lucasfilm’s destruction of Luke Skywalker by having Rey do everything he was supposed to.

Not only did Luke attempt to murder his nephew and abandon not just his nephew but the entire galaxy to Snoke, the First Order, and Darth Sidious, Luke also abandoned his students at the fledgling academy he set up. It now appears that Rey will actually set up a successful Jedi Academy and do the work Luke actually did in the Expanded Universe, but Disney took away from him.

In the Expanded Universe, which Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company removed from the official Star Wars canon when they purchased the company, Luke Skywalker is the founder and leader of the New Jedi Order. He founds a Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 during the time of the New Republic and begins recruiting and training a number of new Jedi as detailed in Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy Trilogy novels that begins with Jedi Search.

It’s Luke Skywalker, not the descendant of a clone of Darth Sidious that forms the temple and brings back the Jedi.