Disney is looking to get its Star Wars franchise back into theaters in a big way, announcing not one but two films for 2026.
While not revealing the titles for these two projects, the studio did state that the first will hit theaters on May 22, 2026 with the second one following on December 18. (originally the studio had a Star Wars film scheduled for December 205, but has taken that date off of their release calendar. Another, previously announced penciled-in release date of December 17, 2027 still remains.)
This past April, Lucasfilm announced three different Star Wars projects they had in development at the Star Wars Celebration convention. The first was a film set after the recently completed Sequel Trilogy and would focus on Daisy Ridley’s character of Rey as she traveled the galaxy rebuilding the Jedi Order. Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is set to direct with a script from Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight. Previously, writers Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson had been working on the project.
The second film will be directed by Dave Filoni, who has been the chief architect of the animated side of the Star Wars galaxy, having created the Clone Wars, Rebels and Bad Batch series. His film will purportedly tie together several storylines being told in the current crop of live action Star Wars series he is co-producing with Jon Favreau – The Mandaolrian and Ahsoka specifically – and focus on the escalating war between the Imperial remnant and the New Republic that occurred between the original Star Wars trilogy and the more recent sequel trilogy.
The film announced project was a story set some 25,000 years before the events of anything else we have seen in Star Wars, and will explore the history of the earliest of the Jedi Knights, the wielders of the mystical Force who were all but wiped out by the evil Sith and the Galactic Empire in the main Star Wars saga. Logan director James Mangold will be overseeing this project and while speaking on stage at Star Wars Celebration described the film as a “kind of Biblical epic… A dawning of the Force. Where did it come from? When did we discover it? When did we know how to use it?”
Trade reports suggest that the Daisy Ridley-led project is the one currently the closest to getting in front of the cameras, though Lucasfilm has not confirmed that, so as to what order these three potential films arrive in theaters remains to be seen.
