Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron movie has been removed from Lucasfilm's Star Wars release schedule, proving Disney's biggest Star Wars movie problem still hasn't been fixed. Despite being the only upcoming Star Wars movie with a confirmed release date, it's no longer clear if the movie is even happening at all.
After the completion of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Disney and Lucasfilm's plans for the future of the franchise still arent' totally clear. Originally the studio planned to alternate between main franchise installments and spin-offs like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story but after the box office under-performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story, the studio got gun shy about their spin-off approach. After the divisive response to Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the lukewarm reception of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker the studio wasn't about to launch into a new movie slate, especially with The Mandalorian's positive reception on Disney+ giving the studio more confidence in the franchise's future on the small screen.
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With the fate of Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron movie uncertain, the franchise's future remains a mystery as Lucasfilm continues to push the universe forward on the small screen. While most of the live-action Star Wars series have seen a strong reception, Lucasfilm needs to fix its movie development problems and return to the big screen eventually.
Disney Star Wars Has Been Plagued by Movie Development Issues
While Disney and Lucasfilm released five Star Wars movies in just seven years after Disney purchased the studio in 2012, the development and production process was not as easy-going as the packed release schedule may suggest. In fact, the only Star Wars movie in that period to not experience well publicized creative conflicts and rewrites or reshoots is Star Wars: The Last Jedi (although that clearly didn't keep the movie free of off-screen drama).
The behind the scenes creative conflicts didn't negatively impact every movie – both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: Rogue One received glowing reviews and earned big box office hauls – but in the case of Solo: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the reception was less positive (especially for The Rise of Skywalker) and the box office hauls came in well below expectations set by other Star Wars release (especially in the case of Solo).
George Lucas wasn't exempt of creatives conflicts and development issues production issues on Star Wars movies under his supervision, but the issues never resulted in movies being outright abandoned. In fact, much of Lucas's behind-the-scenes conflicts resulted in some of the creative decision-making that came to define the franchise.
Disney Keeps Announcing Star Wars Movies That Don't Happen
In addition to the problems with the movies that got released, there's almost as many movies that were announced or quietly started development behind the scenes that never materialized. In cases such as Rian Johnson's announced Star Wars trilogy, the studio and Johnson claim it's still in development, but it's been nearly four years since it was announced and it doesn't appear to be any closer to actually entering production.
Outside of Johnson's trilogy, Lucasfilm also tried to develop a Boba Fett movie with director Josh Trank that got canceled (with the character eventually appearing in his own Disney+ series), an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie from director Stephen Daldry (which evolved into the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+), a movie about Mos Eisley spaceport, and a trilogy of movies from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff & D.B. Weiss.
Rogue Squadron Proves Disney Still Hasn't Learned its Lesson From Star Wars Movie Failures
Despite the long list of issues Disney has experienced with its Star Wars movie slate, Rogue Squadron's disappearance from the release schedule is another example of the same problems they've been running into for the last decade. It's not clear why this keeps happening, but the studio seems to be the common denominator since the creatives conflicts have occurred with numerous writers and directors of various levels of accomplishment. Creative conflict of some extent is inherent if not necessary in the development of any movie, so while it's not reasonable to expect Disney to eliminate or avoid creative conflicts, Disney and Lucasfilm should be expected to improve their processes so they don't continue announcing projects or getting so far into development before these issues arise.
Solo: A Star Wars Story is the perfect example. Phil Lord and Chris Miller were almost done with principal photography before they were fired from the movie and Ron Howard was brought in to reshoot the majority of it. The tone and directing style of Lord and Miller are cited as the biggest reasons for their firing, but those are issues that should have been sorted out before cameras even rolled, or could have even been addressed in the first few weeks into production. It's odd that production was started despite the disagreements on approach and that production continued as long as it did before the studio decided the directors needed to go.
Likewise, Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron movie shouldn't have been announced if the director and the studio weren't already on the same page about things like the story, style, tone, and other factors – especially when these exact same issues have already impacted so many other Star Wars projects. Other franchises like the DCEU have experienced similar complications, so it might be an unfair standard to expect Star Wars movies to be exempt from these issues, but when the Disney-owned Marvel Studios can produce dozens of well received movies in the MCU in just a decade and a half, it's odd to see the exact opposite at another Disney owned studio.
Without Rogue Squadron's future uncertain, and little news from the Star Wars movies in development from Taika Waititi and Kevin Feige, they all join the aforementioned Rian Johnson trilogy which hasn't shown any signs of progress in years. If Disney and Lucasfilm truly plan to re-establish a theatrical presence with Star Wars, then the studio needs to learn to ensure they have a stronger alignment with filmmakers before announcing new movies.
Ultimately, the vast resources of Disney and immense popularity of Star Wars will surely result in the franchise eventually successfully re-establishing its theatrical presence, but the repeating pattern of creative conflicts, rewrites, reshoots, delays, and cancelations doesn't seem to have improved much despite the long list of movies impacted. Fortunately, Star Wars is seeing enough success on the small screen to prevent its theatrical failures from being more catastrophic, but the galaxy far, far away can't stay off the big screen forever.