Star Wars Celebration 2023 Day 1 News Roundup
Star Wars Celebration returned to London today and brought with it lots of news from a galaxy far, far away (along with a new trailer for an ageing archaeologist…)
Most of today’s announcements came from the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase panel, and we’ll kick off with the big news that Star Wars is returning to the big screen in a big way! There are three new live-action movies in development, and they will all come from different parts of the Star Wars timeline. Actually, speaking of that, they posted an official timeline graphic during the panel, which shows every era. You can see a cleaned-up version of it below:
Star Wars era timeline
They also commented that they actually have projects set up in every era of that timeline! With that in mind, we move on to those films…
Three New Star Wars Films
The first film comes from James Mangold (‘Logan’, ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’) and is set at the Dawn Of The Jedi. As you can see from the timeline, that means it goes way, WAY, back, even before The Old Republic (the setting for the beloved ‘Knights Of The Old Republic’ video games) and will focus on the origins of the very first Jedi Knights.
The second film comes from the overlord of Star Wars animation and fountain of Star Wars knowledge, Dave Filoni, who is also heavily involved in most of the live-action TV series. He will helm a new live-action film which will focus on the New Republic era, and close out the interconnected stories told in ‘The Mandalorian’, ‘The Book of Boba Fett’, ‘Ahsoka’, and other Disney+ series.
The third movie comes from Academy Award- and Emmy Award-winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (‘Ms. Marvel’, ‘Saving Face’), and seems to be… shall we call it “a pallet cleanser?”… to ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’… Set after the events of the less-than-well-received J.J. Abrams movie, the new film sees Daisy Ridley return as Rey as she attempts to build a new Jedi Order.
Star Wars: Ahsoka Trailer & Release Date
The next big thing to drop was a trailer for ‘Star Wars: Ahsoka‘, along with the news that it would which premiere this August on Disney+.
Set after the fall of the Empire, ‘Ahsoka’ follows the former Jedi knight Ahsoka Tano, played by Rosario Dawson, as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.
There is a LOT in this trailer if you look closely. Not only Ahsoka, Sabine and Hera, but also Ezra, Thrawn, Chopper, and a lot more! You can read a full breakdown of it here.
Star Wars: The Acolyte Coming 2024
Whilst people in the room were shown some footage of the upcoming series ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte‘, the trailer has yet to be (officially…) released online.
Created by Leslye Headland (‘Russian Doll’), the series is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.
Speaking on stage, Headland said “What I pitched to Kathleen Kennedy was Frozen meets Kill Bill… Shockingly, she didn’t kick me out of the building!” Have to say, if anyone can pull that off, it’s the co-creator of the wonderfully nuts ‘Russian Doll’! She continues saying it is set in the “High Republic near the beginning of the prequels and an exciting part of the timeline. This is when the bad guys are outnumbered. They are the underdogs. I’m really excited for you guys to see things you haven’t seen in live-action yet.”
The previously announced cast for the series includes Amandla Stenberg (“The Hate U Give”), Emmy Award-winner Lee Jung-jae (“Squid Game”), Manny Jacinto (“Nine Perfect Strangers”), Dafne Keen (“His Dark Materials”), Jodie Turner-Smith (“Queen & Slim”), Rebecca Henderson (“Inventing Anna”), Charlie Barnett (“Russian Doll”), Dean-Charles Chapman (“1917”) and Carrie-Anne Moss (“The Matrix”).
Announced as joining them today was Joonas Suotamo, the actor who took over the role of Chewbacca, who will now also be playing another Wookie character in the series – this one is called Kel Naka, and is a Jedi. Of the other cast, Dafne Keen and Charlie Barnett both mentioned their characters use lightsabers.
The clip shown to the crowd revealed – Amandla Stenberg’s character is a Padawan, and was attacking Carrie-Anne Moss’s character; Jung-jae appears to be a Jedi Master; Charlie Barnett seemed to be holding a yellow lightsaber, so is presumably a Jedi too.
Filming began in October 2022 on the series, and they confirmed 4 episodes are complete, and have been shown to Kathleen Kennedy who was “blown away” by what she saw. No specific premiere date was given, but it will air in 2024.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
They finally revealed a little bit more about the Jude Law-fronted series ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew‘. Again, a trailer was shown to the crowd but has not been (officially) released online.
All we’ve really known about the series up until now is that it was set within the same New Republic era timeline as ‘The Mandalorian’ and was invoking the memories of those 80s Amblin movies such as ‘The Goonies’, with a cast led by kids, but not a “kids show”. We now also know that it follows a group of kids who make a mysterious discovery on their seemingly safe home planet.
The trailer shows a forest world, where the kids (played by newcomers Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Kyriana Kratter, Robert Timothy Smith, and Ryan Kiera Armstrong), spend their days messing around on speeders, going to school, and other kid stuff, whilst longing for adventure… and it looks like they found it! Out in the woods, they seem to have come across a pirate group, led by Vane (last seen in this season of ‘The Mandalorian’ getting into a scrap with Mano and Greef Karga). The kids are captured but rescued when a mysterious hooded figure turns up, who appears to be a Jedi, played by Jude Law…
Along with revealing the trailer, they also announced the directors, which include Jon Watts (‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’), David Lowery, The Daniels (‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’), Jake Schreier (upcoming MCU movie ‘Thunderbolts’), Bryce Dallas Howard (‘The Mandalorian’), and Lee Isaac Chung (‘The Mandalorian’).
Star Wars: Andor, Season 2
There isn’t really a whole lot to say about ‘Andor‘ Season 2 at this point, other than confirming that they started shooting in November, and are currently on schedule, with an expected release date around August 2024… So we’re a while away yet!
Executive producer Tony Gilroy did confirm that the show will dovetail into ‘Rogue One’ in the same way that film slotted into ‘A New Hope’. They also showed a clip which didn’t reveal much, but did show Cassian, Dedra, Syril, and Bix back together again.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Season 3
Not a huge update on ‘The Mandalorian‘ Season 3, which is currently airing on Disney+, but there was a clip from next week’s episode 7, and an interesting name-drop…
The clip shows Katy M O’Brian as the “ahem” supposedly “reformed” Elia Kane, on a holo call with Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon. Gideon comments “I shall deal with our Mandalorian friends”, before turning the conversation to the subject of Grand Admiral Thrawn and “his imminent return…” Could the reason we only see the back of his head in the ‘Ahsoka’ trailer is so it does spoil the reveal at the end of ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3?
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Trailer
Lastly, as this is technically a Lucasfilm panel, even though it is at Star Wars Celebration, they dropped the full official trailer for ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’, which lands in cinemas on June 30, 2023.
Harrison Ford returns as the legendary hero archaeologist in the fifth instalment of the iconic “Indiana Jones” franchise, alongside John Rhys-Davies (‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’) as Sallah, and new sidekick Phoebe Waller-Bridge (‘Fleabag’) as Helena, his god-daughter.
The movie also stars Antonio Banderas (‘Pain and Glory’), Shaunette Renee Wilson (‘Black Panther’), Thomas Kretschmann (‘Das Boot’), Toby Jones (‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’), Boyd Holbrook (‘Logan’), Oliver Richters (‘Black Widow’), Ethann Isidore (‘Mortel’) and Mads Mikkelsen (‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore’).
Directed by James Mangold (“Ford v Ferrari,” “Logan”), the film is produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Simon Emanuel, with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas serving as executive producers. John Williams, who has scored each Indy adventure since the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1981, is once again composing the score.
So that is Day One of Star Wars Celebration 2023! If you want to keep track of any of the TV shows mentioned in this article, you can add them via our Never Miss system, and you’ll be notified when they get a UK premiere date.
