Canceled Star Wars movie “resurrected” but fans are doubtful

Rogue Squadron, the shelved Star Wars movie from director Patty Jenkins, has been revived, yet fans have doubts about its eventual release.

Disney unveiled Star Wars: Rogue Squadron in 2020, with plans to release the film in 2023. Apart from a teaser trailer wherein director Patty Jenkins shared her vision, specifics about the project never surfaced.

Scant information hinted at Rogue Squadron introducing a new generation of fighter pilots. Naturally, this excited Star Wars faithful, especially those who longed to see the action of the franchise’s fighter pilot video games appear on the big screen.

Such hopes were dashed in 2023 when Disney removed the film from its slate of releases, leading some to believe it’d been scrapped. Jenkins explained on Twitter that she exited “after a long and productive development process,” which was complicated by scheduling conflicts with what would’ve been Wonder Woman 3.

Disney and Patty Jenkins revive shelved Rogue Squadron movie

In a recent interview on the Talking Pictures podcast, Patty Jenkins claims she has returned to development on Rogue Squadron with Disney.

She noted that after her future Wonder Woman plans fell apart, “Lucasfilm and I were like, oh, ‘we gotta finish this deal.’ We finished the deal right as the strike was happening. So I now owe a draft of Star Wars and so we will see what happens there.”

The filmmaker later reiterated, “…I’m back on doing Rogue Squadron and we’ll see what happens.”

While it seems the Rogue Squadron movie is back on, Star Wars fans aren’t getting their hopes up. Twitter users responding to the above DiscussingFilm post, for instance, joke that they’re looking forward to seeing the project in 2030. “Coming to theaters in 2030,” one person remarked.

Others pointed out the number of times hopeful news about Star Wars projects never panned out. “The question is. Will it ever release, because we’ve gone through this with like 6 Star Wars projects so far, and they never come out lol,” said one reply.

Another skeptical commenter added: “There’s only so many times Disney can announce new projects. Now they are announcing shelved projects.”

Not everyone’s expecting the worst, of course. Many fans are excited to see Patty Jenkins’ vision, inspired by her late father U.S. Air Force pilot Capt. William T. Jenkins, finally put to screen. For now, though, Disney has yet to officially add the Rogue Squadron back to its slate of upcoming films.