Six months have passed since news of the next Star Wars movie broke and now we finally have another piece of the puzzle. We already knew that Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins will be making Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, and that the film is aimed at a December 22, 2023 release. Now we know it’ll reportedly be written by Matthew Robinson.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of the addition though Lucasfilm didn’t comment. Gizmodo has also reached out and will update this post if or when we hear. As for Robinson, he co-wrote 2019’s surprise hit Dora and the Lost City of Gold as well as last year’s underrated Love and Monsters. He also worked with Ricky Gervais to co-write and co-direct 2009’s The Invention of Lying, which is appropriate since he’ll be doing a lot of that now that he’s working on Star Wars. He also reportedly wrote a script for the sequel to Edge of Tomorrow but who knows what’s happening with that.
Back when Jenkins’ film was announced, it was described as “[introducing] a new generation of starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy.” Jenkins later confirmed that despite its sharing a title with a popular Nintendo 64 game, the film will have an original story that draws from games, books, and more.
From all that, it seemed like Lucasfilm already had a fairly good grasp of what exactly Rogue Squadron was going to be. So it’s unclear if Robinson is a new addition to the team or if we’re just hearing about his involvement now. According to the trade, “he is currently furiously keyboarding away on a draft” and “the project is hoping to go into pre-production this fall for a shoot sometime in 2022.”
What we do know is that Disney and Lucasfilm are planning for Rogue Squadron to be the first live-action Star Wars movie post-Skywalker Saga. Other movies, including one by Taika Waititi, are likely to follow, but almost like The Force Awakens had so much riding on its shoulder to bring Star Wars back to theatres, Rogue Squadron will carry a similar burden.