The Ronin has been able to confirm that Lucasfilm’s next big Star Wars film, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, has added production designer Aline Bonetto. Director Patty Jenkins was announced for the project back in December and has since revealed to IGN that Rogue Squadron won’t be based on existing books or video games.
JENKINS: “[In the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron movie] we’re doing something original with great influence from the games and the books. There’s a lot of things being acknowledged and understood about the greatness of all of those things, but yes, it’s an original story and I’m so psyched to do it.”
Oddly enough, a screenwriter hasn’t been officially announced.
The next Star Wars feature film will be Rogue Squadron — directed by Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman franchise). The story will introduce 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.
Bonetto previously worked with director Patty Jenkins on Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984.
We wouldn’t be terribly shocked if Wonder Woman cinematographer Matthew Jensen also joined the new Star Wars film after recently working on Season 2 of The Mandalorian. Jensen was the cinematographer for episodes such as The Believer, The Siege, and The Heiress.
Filming is assumed to be taking place at Pinewood Studios UK, the previous primary filming location of the Disney-era Star Wars films. Jenkins isn’t a stranger to productions made in England as she shot the last two Wonder Woman movies at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Watford, England.
With Rogue Squadron in pre-production, casting the latest Star Wars film is going to be the studio’s next big challenge.
Jenkins is still attached to direct Wonder Woman 3 as well, but Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is going to be shot next.
The Star Wars franchise is also currently focusing on a wave of new television shows such as The Book of Boba Fett, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, Lando, The Acolyte, and Rangers of The New Republic. Thor: Love & Thunder director Taika Waititi is writing and directing his own untitled Star Wars film and Rian Johnson is said to be still involved with developing a trilogy of original films.
Disney has officially given Star Wars: Rogue Squadron a release date of December 22, 2023.
The Flash movie is getting more superhero help as Deadline reports that actress Sash Calle has been cast in the role of Supergirl. The newcomer was selected over 400 potential candidates but impressed the studio and director Andy Muschietti.
A new Supergirl solo film had been in development stages at Warner Bros. before her addition to the Flash project, we have to assume that Sasha will likely lead that project if things finally come together on it. Screenwriter Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat, 22 Jump Street, The Cloverfield Paradox) had been previously hired to write a script for Supergirl before development on the solo project froze.
The latest incarnation of Flash’s script was penned by Christina Hodson and will open the DCEU to their own Multiverse via Barry’s speed-force powers, taking cues from the Flashpoint story. There are already two Batman actors expected to appear with Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck teased in official concept art released over the summer.
The Flash will be shooting at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Watford, England with a release date set by Warner Bros. for November 4th, 2022.
Despite some wishy-washy comments made by Patty Jenkins during the promotion of Wonder Woman 1984 about possibly not coming back to make a third film, the filmmaker is officially returning for Wonder Woman 3, an announcement that been expected since the success of the first film. The studio adhering to her demand of a traditional theatrical release as well.
The announcement made by the studio hit multiple trade outlets including Variety.
Gal Gadot is also returning with Jenkins writing and directing the third installment of their trilogy.
There is still an expectation this third film will be set in the present as it had been rumored going back to the first film that the first two movies would be period projects with the third film using a contemporary setting. The scale could also be increased. It’ll be interesting to see if they will attempt to make a crossover with other DC Comics heroes since a bunch are running around in modern times and could open the door for Diana to team-up with Jason Momoa’s Aquaman or the film could even have a connection to Ava DuVernay’s New Gods movie via Granny Goodness.
Using the term “fast-tracking” is a little misleading as Jenkins is busy with her Cleopatra film for Paramount Pictures and recently was announced for Disney’s Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. The Star Wars pic is expected to being shooting in 2022 as it has a release date of December 22, 2023 and there could be a year’s worth of prep/development for that project giving it’s scale. Seeing Patty jump into making a massive studio film beforehand like Wonder Woman 3 when the pandemic is expected to continue well into 2021, seems like a fan wish rather than a reality given the logistical nightmare that would end up becoming.
In theory, Warner Bros. may have to wait until Patty has finished-up on Star Wars: RogueSquadron since that deal seemingly was secured first.
However, this news should relieve fans that have caught the wave of comments from Jenkins about taking a pause on the Wonder Woman franchise.
If Patty Jenkins ever decided to tackle other superheroes beyond Wonder Woman, we now have a pretty good idea of who she’d want to use. As a fan on Twitter has asked Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins that very question and her answer consisted of Superman, Spider-Man, and even Black Widow.
JENKINS: “Thank you for the question. Probably Superman, Spiderman, or Black Widow! So much potential with all of them, always.”
Thank you for the question. Probably Superman, Spiderman or Black Widow! So much potential with all of them, always. https://t.co/zDtxgZuwM9
You might remember that Patty Jenkins is currently assigned to direct Star Wars: Rogue Squadron for Lucasfilm making her part of that family of studios under the Disney umbrella. It’s expected to begin production sometime before the end of 2022 as the release date is set for December 22, 2023.
There are a handful of examples of crossovers between Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios with Thor franchise’s Taika Waititi tackling both The Mandalorian and an untitled live-action feature film. Also, Ant-Man trilogy director Peyton Reed ended up directing two episodes in Season 2 even the emotional season finale. We can’t forget that Jon Favreau, who help usher-in the Marvel Cinematic Universe via Iron Man and Iron Man 2, spearheaded The Mandalorian series with Dave Filoni, producing three spinoffs that include The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Rangers of The New Republic. Jon also continues to play the role of Happy Hogun, most recently appearing in the post-Avengers: Endgame film Spider-Man: Far From Home back in 2019.
Despite rumors, there hasn’t been any official word of how Warner Bros. would like to pursue another Superman film beyond having the character potentially have cameos in other projects. There had been development on a Supergirl film but that seemingly has stalled.
Concerning Spider-Man, we don’t know if Sony/Marvel will extend their production deal despite some signals that could be happening behind closed doors as Olivia Wilde‘s Spider-Woman movie could be Sony/Marvel co-production. With Spider-Man 3 director Jon Watts announced for Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot there is now an expectation he could be moving on to make a trilogy there making it less likely he’d return to make Spider-Man 4 and beyond leaving room for a new director to make a second trilogy, that’s if Sony/Marvel can play nice for another batch of movies.
Having Patty get involved with Black Widow is an interesting proposition as it seems like Florence Pugh may end up taking that mantle as Yelena Belova in future MCU projects. Such as her reported involvement in the upcoming Hawkeye series that will be airing on Disney+ in late 2021. Yelena could lead a Black Widow franchise of films moving forward because of the death of Natasha during the events of Avengers: Endgame.
I think it’ll be a long time before we know for sure if Patty will make Wonder Woman 3 or any other superhero films given the next couple of years will be dedicated to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
In a brief exchange with a fan on Vero, it looks like director Zack Snyder has revealed that his version of Justice League heading to HBO Max next year will be coming out sometime in March.
Zack Snyder has confirmed Zack Snyder’s Justice League will debut on HBO Max in March! pic.twitter.com/MnoIvmVEfe
On Thursday we got a massive amount of information all at once and one of the big highlights was all the Star Wars updates from Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy. The news included brand new films and television shows along with the official return of prequel actor Hayden Christiensen in the role of Darth Vader.
Here is a rundown of the big news revealed at the event by Kennedy and Lucasfilm.
ROGUE SQUADRON – The next Star Wars feature film will be Rogue Squadron — directed by Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman franchise). The story will introduce 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.
I’ll be hopeful that Legends pilot Dash Rendar from Star Wars: Shadows of The Empire is considered for the project given he used the call-sign Rogue Twelve and can finally join Star Wars canon.
Rogue Squadron is set for release on December 22, 2023.
KENNEDY: “Patty has established herself as one of the top directors working in the film industry today. She’s a visionary who knows how to strike the balance between action and heart, and I can’t wait to see what she does in the Star Wars galaxy.”
JENKINS: “It’s been a lifelong dream as a filmmaker to one day make a great fighter pilot film. As the daughter of a great fighter pilot myself, some of the best memories of my life are of seeing my father’s squadron take off in their F4s every morning, and hearing and feeling the awe-inspiring power and grace. When he passed away in service to this country it ignited a burning desire to one day channel all of those emotions into one great film. When the perfect story arrived in combination with another true love of mine, the incomparable world of Star Wars, I knew I’d finally found my next film. I’m extremely honored and excited to take it on, and grateful to Lucasfilm, Disney, and the fans for extending that thrill to me.”
OBI-WAN KENOBI –Ewan McGregor returns in the iconic role of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi for a special event series on Disney+. Officially titled Obi-Wan Kenobi, the series begins 10 years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where he faced his greatest defeat, the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned evil Sith Lord Darth Vader. The series is directed by Deborah Chow, who helmed memorable episodes of The Mandalorian,Season 1, and features the return of Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader.
Despite previous rumblings of filming starting next month, Kennedy confirmed it won’t begin until March.
CHRISTIENSEN: “It was such an incredible journey playing Anakin Skywalker. Of course, Anakin and Obi-Wan weren’t on the greatest of terms when we last saw them… It will be interesting to see what an amazing director like Deborah Chow has in store for us all. I’m excited to work with Ewan again. It feels good to be back.”
AHSOKA – After making her long awaited live-action debut in The Mandalorian, Ahsoka Tano’s story, written by Dave Filoni, will continue in a limited series starring Rosario Dawson and executive produced by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau.
After appearing in The Mandalorian, she revealed a search for Star Wars: Rebels villain Grand Admiral Thrawn and this likely means he could be part of show alongside the return of characters like Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger. We wouldn’t be shocked if Filoni ends up directing the bulk of the episodes.
ANDOR –Andor, a tense nail-biting spy thriller created by Tony Gilroy, is set to arrive on Disney+ in 2022. Diego Luna, reprising the role of rebel spy Cassian Andor from Rogue One, will be joined by a fantastic new cast that includes Stellan Skarsgard, Adria Arjona, FionaShaw, Denise Gough, Kyle Soller, and Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma. Production kicked off three weeks ago in London.
They showed a sizzle reel that had behind the scenes footage and concept artwork.
THE ACOLYTE – Leslye Headland, Emmy Award-nominated creator of the mind-bending series Russian Doll, brings a new Star Wars series to Disney+ with The Acolyte. The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.
I’ll be keeping my fingers-crossed that this potential Sith-focused series with a female lead means we’ll finally be getting Darth Talon or reason to include a version of her.
LANDO – Everyone’s favorite scoundrel Lando Calrissian will return in a brand-new event series for Disney+. Justin Simien, creator of the critically-acclaimed Dear White Peopleand a huge Star Warsfan, is developing the story.
Kathleen Kennedy stopped short from confirming the return of Donald Glover.
A Legends character like Mara Jade could be an interesting addition for the Lando series as before she joined the Empire she was smuggler.
RANGERS OF THE NEW REPUBLIC – Set within the timeline of The Mandalorian, this new live-action series from executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni will intersect with future stories and culminate into a climactic story event.
TAIKA WAITITI’S UNTITLED STAR WARS MOVIE – A brand-new Star Wars feature with acclaimed filmmaker and Academy Award-winner Taika Waititi is in development.
KENNEDY: “Taika’s approach to Star Wars will be fresh, unexpected, and…unique. His enormous talent and sense of humor will ensure that audiences are in for an unforgettable ride.”
Although, it was noticeable that co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns is absent from the update, despite being mentioned in the original announcement.
Taika begins shooting Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder next month in Australia.
THE BAD BATCH – The series follows the elite and experimental clones of the Bad Batch (first introduced in The Clone Wars) as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War. Members of Bad Batch — a unique squad of clones who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army — each possess a singular exceptional skill which makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew. In the post-Clone War era, they will take on daring mercenary missions as they struggle to stay afloat and find new purpose.
They dropped a sizzle reel for the upcoming Disney+ series.
STAR WARS: VISIONS– Presenting all-new, creative takes on the galaxy far, far away, Star Wars: Visions will be a series of animated short films celebrating Star Wars through the lens of the world’s best anime creators. The anthology collection will bring 10 fantastic visions from several of the leading Japanese anime studios, offering a fresh and diverse cultural perspective to Star Wars.
STAR WARS: A DROID STORY –As Lucasfilm continues to develop new stories, the intersection of animation and visual effects offers new opportunities to explore. Lucasfilm Animation will be teaming up with Lucasfilm’s visual effects team, Industrial Light & Magic, to develop a special Star Wars adventure for Disney+, A Droid Story. This epic journey will introduce us to a new hero, guided by legendary duo R2-D2 and C-3PO.
The craziest part is that they’re developing even more projects that they didn’t announce or give updates for such as Rian Johnson‘s all-new trilogy.
Back in July, Discussing Film first reported information that Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot would be returning to her Fast & Furious action roots for an untitled spy film from Skydance and screenwriter Greg Rucka (The Old Guard). Deadline has their own update with the film’s title, Heart of Stone, with Wild Rose director Tom Harper in talks. Also, that the script will be co-written by Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures).
It’s unknown if the project is heading to streaming or will be released theatrical.
Gal has recently wrapped another Skydance film titled Red Notice that co-stars Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds that will drop on Netflix sometime in 2021.
Yesterday, it was officially announced that the last big studio blockbuster of 2020 would be releasing December 25th on both HBO Max (free to subscribers) and in limited theatrical markets (unclear how many screens they’ll have), the latter still seems like a bonkers move considering the U.S. is on the brink of another hospital disaster as COVID-19 cases skyrocket. A home option is great but this puts Warner Bros. in position to take another loss as it’ll be extremely tough for the pricey film to recoup costs or even turn a profit at this point.
Obviously, WarnerMedia just wants to get the movie out there in the world and stop gobbling-up prime release dates in 2021 for 2020 movies collecting dust after already bouncing both Godzilla vs Kong and Dune out of the 2020 schedule. 2021’s lineup is already going to see multiple films bumped to 2022 and taking one more piece of the board will likely save them a bit money from a marketing standpoint.
It’s easy to assume that offering up Wonder Woman 1984 for free to subscribers is meant to avoid the bungled streaming release of Disney’s Mulan that had access only to Disney+ subscribers but they had to spend an extra $29.99 on top of their sub fees and only wait until December to get the film for free. Mulan had been hailed as a “success” early on by folks trying to do imaginary math, putting the cart before the horse, only later to be revealed as a bit of disaster for the studio and Disney took a massive loss then pivoted to allow larger access to purchase it digitally, a sign the Disney+ only access wasn’t terribly profitable.
Streaming doesn’t have a box office tally and the only real gauge will be how many subscribers HBO Max was able to keep and add in the weeks after Wonder Woman 1984 is added to the service. I don’t really imagine WarnerMedia is going share the drop-off numbers.
The problem is that HBO Max is mostly a U.S. based streaming service and there is a good chance that in countries where WarnerMedia has made deals with foreign media companies to distribute their content. To me, it feels like the company believes that offering the free for free will lead to a mass drive in new domestic subscriptions, sure, but that number could look inflated (streaming data is sketchy as it is) as we’ll likely won’t know how many people dropped their new subscriptions in the following months.
While adding more access in the United States is great they’re still limited on how many subscribers they could likely add by not being a bigger international player along with not really being able to compete with Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ on the scale.
In my own case, I’m located in Canada and HBO Max isn’t here because WarnerMedia has had a longstanding deal with Bell Media’s Crave to distribute their HBO content along with the new HBO Max stuff as well. This means that people like myself with Crave might be getting Wonder Woman 1984 with zero dollars going to HBO Max directly, it’s not just Canada as these sort of foreign content deals have kept the streaming service out of multiple countries.
I wouldn’t be shocked if they eventually announce a third PVOD option because I don’t really see how they’re going to earn any money at the box office in late December and throughout early 2021. It’s worth reminding people that Warner Bros. only earned a poultry $56.3 million domestically from the release of their Christopher Nolan blockbuster Tenet and theaters are expected to be in rougher shape over the winter, not just domestically but globally. December and throughout January it doesn’t seem likely that the U.S., Canada, UK, Europe, and other markets will be in the kind of shape due to rising COVID-19 cases to even give the studio the international box office that Tenet saw months back which wasn’t great to begin with.
I’m not sure how many more box office hits Warner Bros. can take before something drastic happens concerning employees as WarnerMedia/AT&T is tinkering with their distribution of massive films (WW84’s budget is said to be in the $200 million range) leading to limited/zero profit on films that should be earning $600 million to a billion dollars is only going to lead to more damage to the studio side and could only get worse in 2021. They’ve already cut a bunch of jobs from the marketing department.
We don’t really know how consumers are going to ultimately react to Wonder Woman 1984 being added to the service outside of loyal fans of the franchise who likely already have HBO Max subscriptions, as do most die-hard DC Comics fans. It’s a single film and hardly comparable to something like an exclusive original ongoing series like The Mandalorian.
I also think it’ll be difficult for them to keep Wonder Woman 1984 from digital and PVOD given that access to HBO Max is limited internationally. I’m not even going to get into the obvious issue of having a pristine HD copy of a massive studio film hitting torrenting sites on the same day as it’s drop date, although, being free on HBO Max might cut down on domestic downloading but not on the international side.
This just feels like a short-term win for fans but at the expense of Warner Bros. ability to actually make money from the film and could add to the harm to the studio if 2021 doesn’t improve in a big bad way.
Deadline has some interesting news this weekend as Wonder Woman duo of director Patty Jenkins and actress Gal Gadot are set to reunite on a Cleopatra biopic film written by Laeta Kalogridis (Avatar, Alita: Battle Angel, Altered Carbon, Shutter Island) for Paramount Pictures. The studio won a biding war that included contenders such as Warner Bros., Netflix, Universal, and Apple.
It most recently had Dune and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve attached for a time before it eventually moved to Jenkins.
Cleopatra is the daughter of Ptolemy, ancestor of the leader of Alexander the Great’s army. When Rome’s ruler Julius Caesar’s mentor-turned-rival Pompey fled to Egypt after a brutal war for control of the empire, Egypt became a fixation of Roman rulers. Two siblings battled for the throne of Egypt. After winning that internal struggle by appealing personally to Caesar, Cleopatra had a complicated relationship with Rome, becoming the lover of Caesar and later Marc Antony. The latter alliance would become the undoing of both Antony and Cleopatra.
While Jenkins is currently known for directing Wonder Woman and the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984, she has tackled mostly serious features including the serial killer film Monster that earned Charlize Theron a Best Actress Oscar.
Laeta Kalogridis’ background in the action genre would suggest that the film could be more than strictly a period drama.
When filming is expected to begin is a little unclear at the moment as Gal is currently shooting Netflix’s Red Notice and has other projects in the works as well.
This seems like a horrible idea but Warner Bros. has moved Wonder Woman 1984 to December 25th from it’s former October 2nd spot announced via The Hollywood Reporter. The interesting angle here is that the massive film Dune is still slated to be released on December 18th.
This would certainly hurt one or both films releasing them so closely to each other.
I suspect Warner Bros. will realize the issue and bump Dune to another date in 2021 and just hasn’t figured out where to place it.
The Wonder Woman 1984 move sounds like a direct response to Tenet’s weak domestic opening of $20.2 million (estimated) and they’ll be hopeful that things will be better in December.
WONDER WOMAN 1984 –Fast forward to the 1980s as Wonder Woman’s next big screen adventure finds her facing two all-new foes: Max Lord and The Cheetah. With director Patty Jenkins back at the helm and Gal Gadot returning in the title role, “Wonder Woman 1984” is Warner Bros. Pictures’ follow up to the DC Super Hero’s first outing, 2017’s record-breaking “Wonder Woman,” which took in $822 million at the worldwide box office. The film also stars Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Kristen Wiig as The Cheetah, Pedro Pascal as Max Lord, Robin Wright as Antiope, and Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta.
THE RONIN 