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IT'S BEEN quite the decade in a galaxy far, far, away. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4 billion, it had actually only been seven years since the most recent Star Wars movie, 2005's Revenge of the Sith—but it somehow felt like much longer. There was a real, serious thirst for more Star Wars, and fast; Disney recognized a real ability to quench that thirst, and make a whole lot of money in the process.
The plan materialized quickly: a sequel trilogy would hit theaters every other year, starting in 2015, with other films filling in blanks in the ever-expansive Star Wars universe. And things started off great, as 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens was widely loved and earned more than 2 billion at the box office.
That would be the peak; while the next two installments in the trilogy would continue to make lots of money, The Last Jedi was polarizing (though, if you ask me, it's great), and The Rise of Skywalker closed out the new trilogy with a mess of a film that spent more time introducing shoddy plot points and trying to undo The Last Jedi than anything that people who had Star Wars fever really wanted to see. Disney had lost the plot.
But in 2019, during the lead-up to Rise of Skywalker, Disney found a new massive success: The Mandalorian, which came along with the launch of the new streaming service Disney+. The success of both The Mandalorian and the one-off Star Wars film Rogue One (Solo's response was a bit more lukewarm) sent Disney a strong message: for now, just focus on side stories. We can get back to the other stuff later.
And so for the last four years, Star Wars has been confined only to the small screen. The Mandalorian has been joined by shows such as The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the masterful Rogue One prequel Andor. And while there's been some success for Lucasfilm on streaming, this is a franchise that always has aimed higher. There aren't many films that give their legions of fans that magic feeling when they start to roll on a giant, silver screen, but Star Wars is one of them.
Disney isn't stopping its Star Wars shows; quite the contrary, in fact. But after several false starts for planned big screen events (we'll never know what we missed out on in the numerous cancelled Star Wars films, including the trilogy from Benioff and Weiss, Damon Lindelof's movie, JD Dillard's movie, Patty Jenkins' movie, etc. etc.), there finally seems to be some big screen movement in addition to the small screen churn.
Despite some variance in quality and a slight tendency for hyperbole, it's been undeniably a good decade to be a Star Wars fan. But if and when these future Lucasfilm projects come to fruition and we can finally see them, it should (hopefully!) get even better.
Here's a look at all the Star Wars shows and movies that could be on the horizon.
Upcoming Star Wars Shows
Ahsoka (August 2023)
After appearing in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, Ahoska Tano is finally set to make her official jump to live-action for an adventure of her own in this series bearing her name. Ahsoka will be another production from the team of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni (who worked together on both of the aforementioned Star Wars shows), and Rosario Dawson will once again play the titular dual-lightsaber wielding badass.
There's a trailer, and, as you can see above, it looks great. Ahsoka will be joined by Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) among others as they take on Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), who could be the next major Star Wars villain. Lots of characters here could be significant to fans of the Star Wars animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels, including young Jedi Ezra Bridger. Hayden Christensen will also be returning once again as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in what we can only assume will be flashback sequences. We'll have to stay tuned, but we arevery excited.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2023)
Skeleton Crew comes from the producing team of Jon Watts (director of the MCU's Spider-Man trilogy) and Christopher Ford, and is said to be an Amblin-style coming-of-age story (think E.T., The Goonies, or even the very-obviously-influenced Stranger Things) set in the post-Return of the Jedi Star Wars era (making it likely to cross over with The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, etc).
Jude Law leads the cast, along with The Banshees of Inisherin Academy Award nominee Kerry Condon and TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe. There's a murderer's row of talent on board to direct: Lee Isaac Chung and Bryce Dallas Howard (both of whom have directed episodes of The Mandalorian before), along with Jake Schreier (who just directed a large chunk of Beef and will next work on Thunderbolts), David Lowery (The Green Knight), and the Daniels—the reigning Best Director Oscarwinners for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Wow!
The Acolyte (2024)
Great cast? Check. Uncharted waters in this massive universe? Check. A proven streaming-era creator/showrunner? Check. Everything we want in an exciting Star Wars project is at play in The Acolyte, which is expected to be released at some point in 2024.
Coming from Leslye Headland (who co-created Russian Doll for Netflix), the show is set in a time period we've never seen before: the High Republic era, which is approximately 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace and has not yet been depicted in live-action. The show is said to follow a former Padawan (played by Amandla Stenberg) who returns to her Jedi master (Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae) to investigate a series of crimes that leads them to something darker and more sinister than they could have imagined.
The show's cast will also include a number of people you've certainly seen before: Manny Jacinto (from The Good Place), Charlie Barnett (from Russian Doll), Dafne Keen (from Logan), Jodie Turner-Smith (from After Yang), Dean Charles-Chapman (from Game of Thrones), Carrie Anne-Moss (from The Matrix), and Joonas Suotamo, who previously played Chewbacca, now playing a new Wookie who also happens to be a Jedi master.
Andor, Season 2 (August 2024)
What more is there to say about Andor that hasn't been said? It's quite simply one of the greatest things that Lucasfilm has ever created.
This second and final installment (as it was always designed) will bridge the remaining gap between the show's first season and the beginning of Rogue One. Can. Not. Wait.
The Mandalorian Season 4 (?)
We haven't gotten official word of The Mandalorian Season 4 just yet (although Jon Favreau has said that it's already written), but, come on. We know it's coming. Get us more Grogu, and get it to us fast.
Upcoming Star Wars Movies
Untitled Rey-centered movie (2025)
Since this is the first one on the list, we're just going to have to say this: every film on this list should be taken with somewhat of a grain of salt. For all the Star Wars movies that have been made in the last decade, countless others have been announced and conceived only to fall apart in early production and never see the light of day. It's a weird thing.
But, anyway, we do have some movement on some potential new Star Wars movies. Daisy Ridley is set to return to Star Wars as Rey, this time likely not as the lead but as a Jedi master (a la Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, or Qui-Gon Jinn) training a new generation of Jedi Padawans. Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will be at the helm.
Untitled Mandalorian/Boba Fett/Ahsoka Wrap-up movie
Another movie in the works is set to be directed by Dave Filoni, and is intended to conclude the story set up in all of the live-action Star Wars shows that he's worked on: The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, The Book of Boba Fett, and whatever else is coming in the future.
James Mangold's Untitled Biblical Star Wars Epic
Director James Mangold has been a master of genre-jumping throughout his career, with his work ranging from slashers to musical biopics to cop dramas; in the last five years alone, he directed one of the best superhero movies of all time (Logan), a badass car movie (Ford V Ferrari), and helmed the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for Disney. He's even signed up to write and direct a new horror-leaning version of Swamp Thing for James Gunn's new DC Universe. So what else could possibly be on his plate? How about a totally new and ambitious Star Wars idea?
Mangold is set to write and direct a movie about the very first Jedi in history, said to be set 25,000 new years before A New Hope. The movie has been described as a biblical epic, and, folks, we really hope it gets made. Because this would be exactly that: Epic.
Taika Waititi's Untitled Star Wars Movie
After both directing arguably the best episode of The Mandalorian Season 1 and playing IG-11 in the show, Taika Waititi was signed up to write and direct a Star Wars movie of his own back in 2022.
There haven't been a ton of official updates since then (other than a couple back and forth moves on the film's writing team and the fact that Waititi will likely also have a role acting in the movie), but according to a May 2023 Deadline piece about a new Waititi project, the film is scheduled to enter production in 2024.
Rian Johnson's Star Wars Trilogy (?)
The plan, originally, was for Rian Johnson to make his own trilogy of Star Wars films following the Sequel trilogy. But after the combination of the extremely toxic reaction to The Last Jedi and Johnson's own follow-up, Knives Out, becoming a wildly successful franchise in and of itself... the brakes were pulled on that one.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said in April that Johnson's trilogy is "not actively" in development, particularly citing his commitment to the Knives Out films. "But he really wants to step back into the space," she said. "It’s a big commitment of time, so that’s really on him."
So... we'll see? But don't hold your breath on this one.
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
