Happy Sunday, and welcome to a new edition of “This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away“. August is already here, which means that we are now four months away from Skeleton Crew coming out. (Can I just say how nice it is, after two years of using a low-quality version of the photo above, to finally have it in HD?) Today, we’ll be discussing the new release date announcement, along with some recent, and honestly offputting quotes from former Lando showrunner Justin Simien. Plus, some predictions for what to expect from Star Wars coming out of D23 next week.
On our YouTube side, Jay, Tyler, and Luke discussed some of the recent Star Wars news headlines, and culminated the latest episode of SWNN Live! with a fun chat about elements of Star Wars Legends carrying over to the current canon, and what else could make the jump soon. Watch here, also available on audio platforms. Also, make sure to catch Tyler and I’s discussion on how to Make Star Wars Relevant Again!
Three Things That May Have Flown Casual
- Video game news: We’re in the endgame now of the Star Wars: Outlaws marketing push. Video game and Star Wars content creators got their hands on the new game for four hours and posted their reactions online. The final gameplay preview was also revealed. Elsewhere, the Star Wars: Bounty Hunter remaster is now available.
- Publishing news: A new book trilogy has been announced, titled Reign of the Empire. It will focus on the earliest days of the Rebellion, and will kick of next February with The Mask of Fear, by Alexander Freed. Follow-ups will be written by Rebecca Roanhorse and Fran Wilde. They will come out in spring 2026 and spring 2027.
- In case you missed it… Josh is back with a fantastic new edition of his Character Spotlight series. This week, he deep-dives into Cad Banse. Check it out here!
Quote of the Week — Misinformation Edition
“For me, the answer is that you have to really face it. It is true grief. I’ve never had a child, I’ve never lost a child, but it’s what I imagine that pain might be like.”
That was Justin Simien’s odd quote, taken from a conversation he had with Collider about coming to terms with leaving the Lando series he was developing for Disney Plus. I get where he’s coming from; he even added “You pour so much of your heart and soul into something, but ultimately, you don’t have control over whether it lives or dies”.
I also get that many times we refer to our own projects as our children. But are we seriously comparing the feeling of letting go of a job, however personal it was to you, to the feeling a grieving parent might feel over losing their child?
Simien’s quote has been circulating all weekend, and it’s sparked some pretty wild misinformation online. I recognize that I’m quite plugged into the news cycle of this franchise, but even I expected some people’s memory to be better than this. Apparently, according to many of the websites that covered the quote, the series was thought to be in the works until Simien spoke about it!
Even Deadline posted a story with the following opening: “Justin Simien says the Donald Glover-starring Solo: A Star Wars Story spinoff series Lando will not be happening.”. The same trade published the following headline last September: “Donald Glover’s ‘Lando’ No Longer A Series As It Pivots To Feature Film”, and the following sentence in the second paragraph: “News broke in July that [Donald and Stephen Glover] replaced Justin Simien as the writers of Lando.”
That’s right. Last summer it was reported that the Glovers were taking over the Lando project for Lucasfilm, and though it was thought at the time that it was still a live-action series, Stephen Glover revealed later that it was actually a movie. I was surprised earlier this year when journalists covering Mr. & Mrs. Smith asked Donald Glover about his two-second cameo in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse but completely ignored the fact that he was doing a Star Wars movie. I guess people just forgot and/or didn’t do their homework (?). (The Hollywood Reporter did ask a harmless question about it, but that was it.)
I hope that this comes at the right time and reporters in Hollywood finally start to dig into what’s happening here. Is this movie still a thing? I’d assumed Lucasfilm had pivoted away from it, given they have so much going on elsewhere. This was announced at the height of Bob Chapek’s “You get a Disney Plus show”-era, yet under Bob Iger’s reign, there is not really a financial reason for this to exist, either on Disney Plus or in theaters.
Final Star Wars D23 Predictions
I’ve been doing pretty terribly at predictions this year, but perhaps I might be able to turn it around this week. A few weeks back, I’d looked at the schedule for the upcoming D23 Expo, excuse me, the upcoming D23 The Ultimate Disney Fan Event (!), and hadn’t noticed any panel where Star Wars might be featured heavily. Either I missed the big Disney Showcase panel on Friday evening, or the organization updated the schedule since then.
In any case, it’s now confirmed that there will be a major, two-hour panel on Friday at 7pm titled Disney Entertainment Showcase, where I expect several Disney divisions, including Marvel Studios and 20th Century, to make a splash with their upcoming releases. Moana 2 will probably get a new trailer, and we might learn more about upcoming live-action remakes (lookin’ at ya, Lilo & Stitch). Audiences might even get a first taste of what Avatar 3 will look like — though I suspect they’ll actually be keeping that one under wraps until next year’s CinemaCon. Maybe a title (?)
As far as Star Wars goes, we do know that Lucasfilm will have a presence there thanks to the official post on StarWars.com. But what can we expect? Four months out, and with a release date freshly added to the calendar, Skeleton Crew is ripe for a first teaser, which will probably be posted online too.
Looking at D23 in 2022, back then we got the first trailer for Tales of the Jedi. With the second season coming out this fall, it sounds like we might learn more about it. I’m also sticking to my months-long prediction that we will learn something new about the future of Star Wars animation on Friday. The Bad Batch, which was acting as the flagship show for the division since 2020, wrapped earlier this year. What is coming next? It can’t be all Tales Of shows…
Another trailer that we got in D23 2022 was a final trailer for Andor. Now, I don’t think they will start promoting the show here, but if Lucasfilm has anything under their belt that is going to be a surefire win, it’s Andor season 2. So I could see them use the show as a way to change some of the conversation around Star Wars by 1) announcing a release window (i.e., next April) and 2) showing a teaser trailer to the people in the room. I mean, they already have one cut together from Celebration 2023. Of course, the problem here is this: Is it really worth it flying Tony Gilroy from New York to L.A. for this little promo, more than six months before the show?
It’s too early to get anything substantial on Ahsoka, but I could see Dave Filoni addressing the elephant in the room: Will they be recasting Baylan for season 2, or will they move on without him? (I called dibs months ago on the theory that Baylan will be one of the Jedi highlighted in Tales of the Jedi season 2, by the way.) As much as I’m hoping for the former, I’m leaning towards the latter as for the direction they’ll go in.
Then, there’s the feature film stuff. Do not expect anything big out of this one. Much like they’ve been doing behind the scenes, they will be focusing on only one film, The Mandalorian & Grogu. I don’t know to what extent, but I’m almost convinced the name of the film will be mentioned. Not doing so would actually be weird, given they’re days away from starting principal photography. And that’s my main prediction: they will say when cameras are set to roll. Something like: “We start in two weeks”.
Other long-shot possibilities that I’ll throw out there:
- New or returning members of the cast. Perhaps confirmation of Sigourney Weaver and/or other new additions. Do not expect Pedro Pascal there, as he’s in London working for Marvel, but maybe Katee Sackhoff, who would probably be in town by now (?)
- Maybe a release date change. May 22, the current slot, is way too close to Avengers: Doomsday (May 1). Plus, that movie, which should be 5x bigger than Mando, doesn’t go up until next spring, while Star Wars is shooting now. What’s up with that? I’m not expecting Jim Cameron to back out of his Dec. 2025 release window for Avatar 3, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they accommodated Jon Favreau’s big-screen Star Wars directorial debut for some time next year… Then again, I’ve been banging this drum for months and there hasn’t been any indication on Disney’s side that they would move it up.
Here’s one of the things I’m most interested in seeing, though: Who will host Lucasfilm’s section of the panel? In past editions, it was almost always Kathleen Kennedy. But given Dave Filoni’s new job title as Chief Creative Officer, and his need to be there as an executive producer on Skeleton Crew and The Mandalorian & Grogu (which he also co-wrote), as well as showrunner of Tales of the Jedi and Ahsoka season 2, everything is lining up for him to take over. And if so, what should we read from that going forward? I won’t get into it for now, but I’ll definitely be revisiting this point in next week’s piece.
So yeah, those are some of the things that I wouldn’t be surprised to see next Friday. I don’t think they will hit all of them, but I expect to at least be right on some accounts. Check back next Sunday for my take on what happened!
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Have a great week!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
source: www.starwarsnewsnet.com