Always in motion, the future of Star Wars movies is, and a new project has entered the picture. J.D. Dillard, director of Sleight and Sweetheart, is reportedly teaming up with Agents of SHIELD and Luke Cage writer Matt Owens to develop a new Star Wars movie.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news, it’s unclear at this point if the film would be theatrical or for Disney+, though it seems like that decision may not be made until it’s further down the road. It’s unclear if Dillard would direct, and of course, there are no definitive plot details yet. Also, neither Dillard nor Lucasfilm had responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Dillard has some strong connections to the Star Wars universe though. He was one of J.J. Abrams’ assistants during the production of The Force Awakens and appeared as a Stormtrooper in The Rise of Skywalker.
From there he went on to make the superhero-inspired magic film Sleight, followed by the recent creature film Sweetheart, which is awesome and currently on Netflix. We spoke to him about both films but, in our discussion of Sweetheart, he talked about what he wants to do with his career.
“My crusade for the rest of my life is letting people who don’t normally get to do the cool things in a movie get to do the cool things. Which is a roundabout way of representation,” Dillard told Gizmodo. “Knowing that yeah, ok, I’m gonna put a black woman at the lead. My sisters love horror movies, weirdly, more than I do, considering I just made one. But they don’t have many…the list is short of black women killing the creature.”
So you have to think whatever he and Owens have cooked up, it will not be like anything Star Wars fans have seen before.
This article was updated after publication to add possible plot information, which was then proven to be a joke. Whatever it is, it does not take place on Exegol.