‘Star Wars’ Wants Jon Watts to Direct Next Skywalker Movie

There are many Star Wars projects that Lucasfilm announced in recent years but then never actually made. They include a trilogy of films from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, a project from Marvel president Kevin Feige, a movie from James Mangold that would be about the earliest origins of the Jedi, and a film following Daisy Ridley’s Rey from the Disney sequel trilogy that would effectively be a sequel to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. (Those are some of the titles Lucasfilm put into development. There are more.)

None of those movies went into production. At this point, odds are very few of them will. But Deadline reported over the weekend that Lucasfilm has “tapped Skeleton Crew co-creator Jon Watts (director of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home) to helm the first installment in a new trilogy of the Skywalker Saga, which is being penned by Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Prime’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith).”

They also note that Lucasfilm has “Daisy Ridley reportedly eyed to reprise her role as Rey, as it will serve in the next chapter of the Skywalker Saga.” (Where this would leave that other Rey project, which would have been directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and written by George Nolfi is not made clear.)

Lucasfilm

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Watts helmed the first three Spider-Man films from Marvel Studios, starring Tom Holland as Spidey. After he concluded that trilogy, he served as creator and showrunner on one of Star Wars’ more well-received TV series on Disney+, Skeleton Crew, a Goonies-esque adventure about a bunch of kids who wind up lost in space and must find their way back to their home planet.

The previous (and supposedly final) installment of the Skywalker Saga, The Rise of Skywalker, opened in theaters in late 2019, and it took from then until earlier this summer for Lucasfilm to finally get another Star Wars film into multiplexes. When it arrived it was The Mandalorian and Grogu, based on the popular Disney+ series.

The film got okay reviews and severely underperformed at the box office; it will go down in history as Disney’s lowest-grossing Star Wars film to date. It’s fair to wonder whether the struggles of a TV property on the big screen is making Lucasfilm think more strongly about bringing back Rey — the hero of their previous big-screen Star Wars franchise — in a new movie.

The next Star Wars film, Star Wars: Starfighter starring Ryan Gosling, opens in theaters on May 28, 2027.