‘Ms. Marvel’s Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Directing New Star Wars Movie

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy handled several episodes of the successful Marvel/Disney+ series and is now aboard one of the highest-profile movies in development.

'Ms. Marvel' director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

It’s fair to say that the news has gone quieter than news reports on Alderaan for the big screen ‘Star Wars’ side of things.

While the TV arm keeps flourishing with ‘The Mandalorian’, its various spin-offs and other shows such as ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’, ‘Andor’ and upcoming animated series ‘Tales of the Jedi’, the movie side of Lucasfilm’s sprawling franchise hasn’t seen a release since 2019’s ‘The Rise of Skywalker’.

And despite financial success, it was a divisive title that didn’t garner a lot of love from critics.

Now, at least, according to Deadline, one of the projects in development at Disney’s ‘Star Wars’ assembly line is taking a tentative step forward, as the movie has hired ‘Ms. Marvel’s Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy as director.

Obaid-Chinoy, who handled two episodes of the peppy, enjoyable Marvel outing, is being brought in now to work with writer/producer Damon Lindelof, so that she’s part of the creative team from an early stage.

It’s no doubt to help avoid some of the director problems that Lucasfilm has faced in the past, including on ‘Solo’ and Colin Trevorrow stepping away from what became ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ under J.J. Abrams.

And Lindelof, of course, has plenty of writing experience, having worked on ‘Lost’, created shows such as ‘The Leftovers’ and ‘Watchmen’ and provided scripts for movies including ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ and ‘Alien’ prequel ‘Prometheus’.

Michael Fassbender as David in 'Prometheus.'

Lindelof has been figuring this one out for a few months, but he hasn’t been working alone: what Deadline’s story doesn’t mention, but that The Hollywood Reporter’s Bothan spies whispered to it is that Lindelof is in fact co-writing the movie with rising star scribe Justin Britt-Gibson.

His resume includes time as an executive story editor on Guillermo del Toro’s vampire drama, ‘The Strain’ and wrote episodes of Starz’s ‘Counterpart’, the series about parallel dimensions that starred J.K. Simmons and was cruelly cancelled after two excellent seasons. Gibson has also worked on ‘Banshee’ and ‘Into the Badlands’.

Further, there is news that the movie’s basic story was hammered out, TV-style by a writers room convened over a two-week session in July.

Present to figure out the ideas behind the script were Patrick Somerville, (a veteran of Lindelof’s much-admired drama ‘Leftovers’ who went on to create ‘Station Eleven’, Rayna McClendon, a consulting producer from ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ who has also contributed to Lucasfilm’s upcoming ‘Willow’ sequel series; and ‘Briarpatch’ TV series creator Andy Greenwald. There’s also mention that Dave Filoni – the creative mastermind behind much of Lucasfilm’s animated ‘Star Wars’ series and who now works alongside Jon Favreau to shepherd the ‘Mandalorian’ set of shows – was also involved.

No concrete details have emerged about the script that Lindelof and Britt-Gibson are writing, though there is talk that it’ll be set after the events of ‘Rise of Skywalker’ and could potentially feature characters from the sequel trilogy that also includes ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘The Last Jedi’. It’s very much a wait and see on that front, however – chances are Lindelof might be more interested in a story entirely unconnected to the recent movies (“somehow, Palpatine returned again… again.” Yeah… not loving the idea ourselves.)

The Reporter’s sources also mention that unlike recent developments aimed at figuring out trilogies in one go, this will be a stand-alone with potential for more if it succeeds.

And Lucasfilm could use a win, what with endless stories of big names including ‘The Last Jedi’s Rian Johnson, Marvel boss Kevin Feige and writer/director Taika Waititi talking up their plans, with little actual momentum to be found.

The most recent disappoint was Patty Jenkins’ ‘Rogue Squadron’, which had looked like it was headed for take-off, but has since been grounded, its release date off the books and no word on when it might be headed for production, let alone release.

Given that the Lindelof film is still in the scripting stage, we wouldn’t expect to see it much before 2025, but there will no doubt be 265 ‘Star Wars’ TV shows to fill the gap in the meantime.