Steven Knight Writing New ‘Star Wars’ Movie

‘Spencer’ and ‘Peaky Blinders’ Writer Steven Knight Taking Over Damon Lindelof’s ‘Star Wars’ Script

Lindelof and co-writer Justin Britt-Gibson recently departed the project, which is still in development.

1977's 'Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.' Credit: Lucasfilm.

Cast your mind back a long time ago, to a galaxy far, far, awa…. Well, actually just a couple of days ago. That was when we brought two ‘Star Wars’ updates: one, that ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert were explaining their decision to direct an episode of incoming Disney+ series ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ and two, that Damon Lindelof (along with co-writer Justin Britt-Gibson) was no longer attached to the untitled, under wraps new ‘Star Wars’ movie that Lucasfilm has in development.

We mentioned at the time that Above The Line, which broke the story, hadn’t heard who might replace the pair on the script, but Variety scooped the news that ‘Peaky Blinders’ creator Steven Knight, who has also worked extensively on the movie front, including writing ‘Eastern Promises’, ‘Locke’ and the Oscar-nominated ‘Spencer’, will be taking over.

Steven Knight at the 2018 British Academy Television Awards. Photo: BBC YouTube channel and the British Academy Television Awards.

What is this new ‘Star Wars’ movie about?

As of right now, Lucasfilm has been able to keep the details of this film behind rigorous blast shields, meaning we don’t know the plot of this one at all yet, or indeed when it’s set in the ‘Star Wars’ timeline.

There’s some (New) hope that it might represent a move away from the established characters, i.e. zero mentions of the Skywalker family or their associated heroes and villains.

And given that it was started by Lindelof and Britt-Gibson and will be continued (or re-drafted) by Knight, it certainly sounds like there’s an interesting angle to be found.

'Ms. Marvel' director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

Who else is involved in this new ‘Star Wars’ movie?

Despite the change in writers, director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a documentarian who has also worked on animated movies and shot episodes of ‘Ms. Marvel’ for Disney+, is still on board to call the shots. But again, she’s said nothing about what the movie might be, nor has Lucasfilm officially confirmed any of this.

We’re expecting news about this (assuming it’s at a point where the company feels confident in announcing it) at Star Wars Celebration, which will run between April 7-10th in London.

'The Mandalorian' season 3 starring Pedro Pascal premieres March 1st on Disney+.

What else is going on with ‘Star Wars’

Outside of the ever-expanding TV shows (‘The Mandalorian’ is back on our screens now and we can expect ‘Skeleton Crew’ and ‘Ahsoka’ for definite this year, plus the return of animated series ‘Star Wars Visions’ and the launch of fellow animation ‘Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures’), the forward momentum of the franchise has been lacking.

On cinema screens, we haven’t seen a movie since ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ in 2019 as Disney and Lucasfilm pumped the brakes on their schedule.

There are several movies in development still (even as the likes of Kevin Feige, Patty Jenkins and ‘Game of Thrones’ duo David Benioff and DB Weiss preceded Lindelof in the departure lounge), with Taika Waititi talking up his script and Rian Johnson still saying he’ll work on more once he’s finished another ‘Knives Out’ film.