May The Fourth recap: New Star Wars projects in the works

May The Fourth — a day that has become synonymous with Star Wars — showcased the future of the franchise, along with other goodies for fans.

May The Fourth is as close as there is to a national Star Wars holiday. With all eyes on the franchise, it made the perfect opportunity to announce what’s next, stirring up excitement for the future. Additionally, May 4, 2020 brought new releases and supporting Star Wars content for fans to enjoy.

Let’s walk through some of the highlights from this year’s May The Fourth:

Taika Waititi movie announced

Oscar winner Taika Waititi is set to direct and co-write a new Star Wars movie.

Any movie-related news is going to dominate headlines, but the fact that one of Hollywood’s most prominent figures is involved makes this announcement especially intriguing.

Waititi recently won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars for his work on Jojo Rabbit. Furthermore, Waititi is already involved in the Star Wars universe, having voiced IG-11 in The Mandalorian; he also directed the much-loved season finale.

While rumors had circulated about Waititi’s involvement in a new Star Wars movie, official confirmation gives fans a reason to be excited about what’s on the horizon.

Leslye Headland developing new Disney+ show

Along with the unveiling of Waititi’s new movie came an official announcement of the new Disney+ show that Leslye Headland will write, executive produce and serve as showrunner on. Headland co-created and directed multiple episodes of Netflix’s Russian Doll, which was nominated for 13 Emmys in its first season.

Variety had reported on Headland’s involvement in late April, saying that her series will be “female-centric” and set in a timeline different from other projects.

Headland’s project rounds out Disney+’s roster of upcoming Star Wars shows to three, along with the in-the-works Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoffs.

The Skywalker Saga key art teased

The upcoming LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga video game has been relatively slim on details. However, the developer, TT Games, shared the key art for the long-awaited project on Monday:

Proudly presenting (the high-resolution) key art for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga: https://t.co/2yihhrxz6n #MayThe4thBeWithYou #LEGOStarWars pic.twitter.com/hqD0Rui4Fu
— TT Games (@TTGames) May 4, 2020

The game will feature all nine Skywalker Saga movies. A specific release date for this year has still not been revealed, but the developer promises that more information will come this summer.

You can read an interview with the TT Games team about the project here.

May The Fourth releases

In addition to news on future projects, new Star Wars content dropped on Monday as well. The releases were headlined by the series finale of The Clone Wars. In addition, The Rise of Skywalker hit Disney+ for an extremely early digital release. Finally, episode 1 of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian is now available; it is an eight-part documentary on all things The Mandalorian, with new episodes releasing on Fridays.