There has been a disturbance in the Force, and that spells bad news for fans awaiting the films expected from Patty Jenkins and Kevin Feige. The rocky reboot of the Star Wars franchise since 2015 has been marred by creative issues, director firings, and generally bad decision-making.
The bad luck has continued with the news from Variety that Jenkins‘ Rogue Squadron—as well as Marvel Studios President Feige‘s untitled project—have both been shelved indefinitely. While the Star Wars franchise continues to do moderately well through Disney+, The Mandalorian excepted, the show from Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni is a critical darling and beloved by fans, the feature films under the Disney/Lucasfilm banner have seen a law of diminishing returns.
Jenkins was first announced as director of the project in December 2020, during the Lucasfilm portion of Disney’s Investor Day presentation. Jenkins shared a story on Twitter that was engaging and personal, discussing how she had lost her father—a fighter pilot—and in his honor, wanted to make the greatest fighter pilot movie ever made. However, speculation had been mounting that the project was in turmoil due to creative differences, before it was removed altogether from the Disney release schedule in September 2022.
Jenkins had last commented publicly on the status of Rogue Squadron in December when she revealed that the project was, at the time, still in development with her attached to direct the film. It marks the latest in a turbulent spell, professionally, for Jenkins after she parted ways with DC and Warner Bros. on Wonder Woman 3 following the appointment of James Gunn and Peter Safran to the CEO position.
News of Feige‘s project had been cold for some time—Michael Waldron had been attached to write for a number of years, following his success at Marvel Studios writing Loki for Disney+, as well as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Magic for director Sam Raimi. Waldron had told Variety that he was “enjoying having the freedom on that to do something that’s not necessarily a sequel or anything,” when he spoke with the outlet in 2026.
Five months later, Feige returned to Waldron, tapping him to pen the script for Avengers: Secret Wars (2026) which is designed to be the culmination of the current Multiverse Saga in the MCU. The current slate of Marvel films has not been quite as well critically received, which could perhaps be a contributing factor to Feige‘s parting of ways with Lucasfilm—unlike Jenkins, he will have plenty to keep him occupied with another 19 Marvel projects currently announced and in various states of development.
via Collider