Once upon a time, we were supposed to be getting a theatrical Rogue Squadron movie by the end of 2023. The film was announced with director Patty Jenkins hired to bring the movie to the big screen. The project even got something of a teaser in the form of an announcement video in December of 2020. However, since then, there’s been very little in the way of concrete updates. And the little that we did get didn’t sound very promising.
In 2021, the film was removed from the production schedule, with director Jenkins’ commitment to her Wonder Woman films being the assumed reason for the delays in production. Earlier this year, the movie was taken off of the release calendar entirely, which felt like a foregone conclusion. It was assumed that the movie was likely not coming out any time soon, or possibly at all as there were rumors that Wonder Woman was keeping Jenkins away from Star Wars entirely.
However, we’ve recently gotten a small update about the movie, and according to the director, Rogue Squadron is still in the works and still expected to hit theaters at some point in the future.
The news comes from an announcement that largely focuses on Jenkins work with Wonder Woman and DC films. It was recently announced that the original plan for the third Wonder Woman movie wouldn’t be going forward as originally pitched as it didn’t fit with the quasi-relaunch that DC movies are in the midst of trying to pull off. With Jenkins off the project there were rumors that the reason she was gone was that she refused to change her story to try and make it work in the current DC landscape. Jenkins posted to clarify those rumors were untrue, and James Gunn who is currently in charge of developing films for the DC Universe made a statement as well, agreeing with hers. However, while the new information about the future of DC films is certainly interesting, the real exciting part was a brief mention of Rogue Squadron from Patty Jenkins.
According to Jenkins, she did in fact, decide to step away from the project in order to focus on the third Wonder Woman movie. However, Lucasfilm asked her to consider returning to the project after her work on the third Wonder Woman movie was completed. According to Jenkins, a new deal was made between her and Lucasfilm that would allow her to continue working on the project. While it may not be the way anybody wanted it, the recent changes at Warner Brothers have resulted in Jenkins now having an opening in her schedule that Rogue Squadron might be able to fit into.
Jenkins did clarify in her statement that she didn’t know for sure if the movie would ever happen or not, stating:
"We never do until the development process is complete, but I look forward to its potential ahead."
However, while she offers a more tempered approach to talking about her possible Star Wars movie this time around, it’s clear that while the project won’t be in theaters before the end of 2023, it’s still very much far from dead.