2023 will soon be over, it’s that time of the year where many people look back, reflecting on the things that happened, but where people also look forward, to things they hope to achieve in the new year. So...
2023 will soon be over, it’s that time of the year where many people look back, reflecting on the things that happened, but where people also look forward, to things they hope to achieve in the new year. So I thought it would be fun, on this very last weekend of the year, to think back to things that could have been. But never were.
Three years ago, on December 10th 2020, Kathleen Kennedy revealed her big plans for Star Wars and Lucasfilm as part of the Walt Disney Investor Day event. Kenobi! Andor! Ahsoka! Visions! Willow! Rangers Of The New Republic! Lando! A Droid Story! Children Of Blood And Bone! Indiana Jones 5! Whatever it is Taika Waititi is supposed to make! And most important of all: Rogue Squadron! You may have forgotten already, but the plan for Rogue Squadron was to be released in December 2023, just now. So in some alternate universe we would be talking about the latest Star Wars movie now, instead of discussing yet another movie that was announced a few months ago… Anyway, this is the perfect opportunity to look back… to what happened and did not happen… Click through for some delicious memberberries!
They even filmed a short teaser featuring the director Patty Jenkins and an X-Wing
So three years ago Kathleen Kennedy announced and mentioned all these shows and movies at the Walt Disney Investor Day event. They even showed a brief clip of Jenkins climbing into an X-Wing as she talked about how much the movie means to her, because her father was a pilot.
And the plan was for the movie to be released just now. Right around when Aquaman 2 was released, a week or two earlier, to benefit from the holiday boost.
What happened to Kennedy’s plans? Obi-Wan Kenobi? After firing the writer and rewriting the show (after saying the scripts are finished) they eventually released that. Andor… was made and is probably the best thing produced by Lucasfilm in a long time. Ahsoka… was made too. Visions got its second season already. The Bad Batch will conclude in 2024 with its third season.
But Lando? The attached star and Lucasfilm still claim it is happening. But who are they kidding. Rangers of the New Republic? That project was derailed when Lucasfilm decided to fire Gina Carano over some social media nonsense shortly after the presentation, which in hindsight sounds like a poor excuse to fire Carano. A Droid Story? Never heard from again. Taiki Waititi says he has no time for Star Wars, because he has to do some other stuff first, like watching paint dry, or grass grow or some such thing… in short: it will never get made, for the better, probably. Kennedy also announced a movie based on the book Children of Blood and Bone (a debut novel by a young female black author about the “black experience”, so that would have meant full brownie points for Lucasfilm). That never materialized as well and Paramount now has the movie rights. James Mangold and Indiana Jones were also mentioned. We all know how that turned out. After a full twelve month delay the movie was finally released in summer of 2023. It’s only not the biggest flop of the year because Wish and The Marvels flopped even harder, which is difficult to imagine, because Indy 5 lost a lot of money. And Willow… was officially erased from reality earlier this year in the great Disney+ purge after flopping so hard Disney could not even justify paying measly residuals to the stars. Which means even if you are a fan of Willow… you cannot watch it anymore. Isn’t streaming a wonderful thing where you do not own physical copies of anything?
So five of the eight announced shows eventually saw the light of day. Three did not. The Acolyte had been announced a few months earlier, we still have no release date for the show, latest news is, they have scheduled reshoots after filming had wrapped before… it’s not entirely clear if those are planned reshoots or yet more Lucasfilm production woes, but there is little doubt the show will get released in 2024 (probably). Of the four movies mentioned, only Indy 5 was eventually released, even if seriously delayed. Waititi’s movie is not officially cancelled, but who are they kidding, Children of Blood and Bone was lost (or never really greenlit by Disney) and Paramount picked up the project and Rogue Squadron was quietly cancelled without ever really admitting it.
Technically speaking Lando has not been cancelled (like Waititi’s movie), as mentioned, both Lucasfilm and Donald Glover claim they are working on something, but we have heard that too many times before now.
Spot the projects that never came to be
But the big thing here is the movie: Rogue Squadron. For about 10 minutes Patty Jenkins was supposed to be the next big thing in Hollywood after her Wonder Woman movie, which she directed. So they gave her a lot more creative control for the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, which she even co-wrote this time and before that movie ever came out Lucasfilm had hired her to write and direct Rogue Squadron. They were pretty confident, apparently, because they even filmed that short clip with Jenkins and showed it to investors and the world.
And then Wonder Woman 1984 came out… and the movie was very much not good at all, in fact, it was a complete disaster and trainwreck. And then script issues were cited as the reason for Rogue Squadron delays. And eventually news broke that the movie has been removed from the schedule… as usual Lucasfilm would like you to believe that the movie could still happen. But everyone knows that movie is dead.
Still, I wonder what things would have been like if Lucasfilm had actually made that movie. Would it have been yet another massive flop in a year of super massive flops? In fact, only one $200+ million Hollywood movie more or less broke even or made a little money in 2023, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, all other movies in that category are super massive flops. Hollywood burned a lot of money this year, it’s so bad analysts say Warner/Discovery is in serious danger of going bankrupt (chances are estimated to be in the 60% range), they are so desperate they are now in preliminary talks with Paramount about a merger, not that Paramount is doing much better either, their streaming service is also bleeding money and Mission Impossibile 7, even though a good movie, lost money too this year.
Chances are Rogue Squadron would have made Disney’s worst year at the box office ever even more bad, given how that movie would probably not have featured any of the things most people usually associate with Star Wars: lightsabers, space wizards, villains wearing dark armor, the usual. So the likelihood of it underperforming or flopping would have been very real.
But this is the thing: Kennedy never greenlit the movie once she saw what Jenkins pitched as the actual script.
So while Kennedy usually gets a lot of flak I think it was actually a good decision by her to quietly cancel the project. And more kudos has to go to Kennedy for rejecting Zack Snyder’s Star Wars pitch – which he subsequently turned into “Rebel Moon”, a movie so bad even the Snyder fans have to admit it’s an utter and complete trainwreck. And Netflix burned hundreds of millions with that project.
Sure, we can and should criticize Kennedy for always announcing things that have a high chance of never materializing and releasing shows that sometimes look cheap, feel cheap and/or have serious script issues or for making sequels without a plan and a thorough character assassination of Luke and Han… but at least there is some quality control. Imagine how bad the Rogue Squadron pitch must have been when you consider that Book of Boba Fett or Obi-Wan Kenobi were greenlit with those scripts, including a slowmo moped chase or Leia outrunning adults with those tiny legs and cheap looking lightsaber fights in a quarry that make fan movies look good.
I shudder at the thought of a Zack Snyder Star Wars movie… or a Top Gun in space with a Star Wars skin. We would have ripped Kennedy to pieces if Rebel Moon had been the new Star Wars. But even though people love to hate on her, Kennedy is still one of the most prominent and most experienced producers in Hollywood. And she evidently has some common sense, sometimes, at least. The people at Netflix threw money at Snyder… Kennedy wisely chose to reject his pitch. I suppose we have to thank her for that.
Still, there is a chance of course Rogue Squadron may have been good, at least on the same level as Solo. But since Jenkins never came up with anything good Kennedy ultimately pulled the plug. Would Hasbro have made a ton of $130 X-Wing toys for Christmas 2023 that rot on shelves? We will never know.
So now that we have looked back, it’s time to look forward… if I were Daisy Ridley I would be afraid. Very afraid. Because having you walk out onto a stage and even showing a kind of teaser trailer won’t save your movie from cancellation when the script never gets the greenlight. And last we heard about the script for New Jedi Order is “it’s not ready yet”. And we have heard that many, many times before. And it usually never meant good things.
Would you have liked to see Rogue Squadron this year? A Top Gun à la Star Wars? Did you even remember Rogue Squadron was supposed to be released in December 2023?
And this is the Patty Jenkins clip with the X-Wing in which she’s very excited about the project. Patty has no upcoming projects btw. even though IMDB claims Rogue Squadron is still in the pipeline. It seems Hollywood has fallen out of love with her over night once they saw Wonder Woman 1984. Gareth Edwards needed a full seven years to recover and to release another movie after his high profile firing (“removal”) from Rogue One – The Creator. Which was yet another flop for Disney. I think it may be best to simply decline if Lucasfilm approaches you to make any movie with the word “Rogue” as part of the title. It seems to be bad luck.
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