Shawn Levy Shares Rare Update On His Untitled ‘Star Wars’ Movie

Director Shawn Levy is finally giving fans a new update about his highly anticipated Star Wars movie.

The untitled film was first announced in early November, but not many updates have been made on the project since. The WGA writer’s strike has put a halt on many upcoming projects from various studios, and it looks like Lucasfilm has been hit by the strike just as hard.

Unfortunately, Shawn Levy has been hit by the writer’s strike as well. Once negotiations have concluded, he will resume working on the script, which doesn’t seem to be finished. During an interview at Collider’s TIFF media studio to promote his Netflix limited series “All The Light We Cannot See,” he told Collider’s Steve Weintraub that they were in the process of developing the untitled “Star Wars” film when the movie was put on hold.

"We were just starting the process of developing my movie, and the writer strike happened," said Levy. "So we are in that holding pattern that so much of our industry is in." He said that the same comments could be said for his “Real Steel” series. “Still, as I told you, I want it as badly as the lovers of Real Steel want it, so alive, but paused,” he added.

In December 2022, in another interview with Collider, Shawn Levy revealed that he has been talking to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy “for a while now” but admitted that “There’s a lot of work to be done” before his script will make it to the big screen.

“Yes. I’m very aware of the ratio of filmmakers who get to the starting line. As you know, Steve, I’m a student of the business, and so of course I note that,” Levy said at the time. “But here’s my attitude: I have this golden ticket into a galaxy far away, and I’m going to devote myself to developing a screenplay that gives me the privilege of making this movie.”

“I don’t attach to things because it looks good in a trade announcement. I attach to things that I intend to make. And you better believe I’m not going to squander this juiciest of opportunities,” he continued. “I’m going to work my a– off. But first, I got to work my a– off on making Deadpool. So it’s definitely longer-term planning, but I want to be one of the movies that gets to the starting line because these are rare opportunities, and I want to make the most of it.”

“I’ve been talking with Kathy Kennedy for a while now, and she’s been aware of my passion for this franchise for a long time. The stars finally aligned, and she came to me and was like, let’s do something here,” he added. “And that’s as much as I can say. But this is definitely development and not yet close to prep. So there’s a lot of work to be done.”

Fans are also excited for the new “Star Wars” film which sees Daisy Ridley reprise her role as the Jedi Rey. The film will be directed by “Ms. Marvel” filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and will be written by “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kathleen Kennedy teased the plot of the movie. “As we move into the future space — this story is about 15 years outside of The Rise of Skywalker — obviously we realized post-war, post–First Order rise of the New Jedi Order, we left episode 9 with Rey making a commitment to Luke Skywalker that she would rebuild the Jedi Order,” Kennedy said.

“And so here we are — we’re ready to do that. And it took a lot of discussion because obviously we’ve been developing stories in different spaces, and television has been a big focus of our attention right now,” she continued. “But there’s still so much interest in what happens after The Rise of Skywalker. So we’re excited to be doing that.”

She also teased the possibility that more characters from the sequel trilogy will appear in the new movie, but no one but Ridley has been confirmed at this time.