Late last night, Above the Line reported that screenwriters Damon Lindelof (Watchmen, The Leftovers) and Justin Britt-Gibson are no longer attached to the Star Wars universe. They were originally tied to an untitled Star Wars project alongside Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Obaid-Chinoy is an Emmy and Oscar winning documentarian who recently gained more fiction credits when she directed two episodes of Ms. Marvel.
This news comes almost immediately after Lindelof’s musings at SXSW where he said to Slashfilm, “the degree of difficulty is extremely, extremely, extremely high” when it comes to creating a film for Star Wars. Lindelof went on to say that “If it can’t be great, it shouldn’t exist... I think it’s possible that sometimes when you hold something in such high reverence and esteem, you start to get in the kitchen and you just go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.’ We’ll just leave it at that point.”
Deadline had previously reported that Lindelof was one of the reasons that Lucasfilm brought a director onto the project early. Sources say that both parties wanted the director’s vision to be reflected in the script from early development. Above the Line reports that Lindelof and Britt-Gibson finished a draft of the script and exited the picture only a few days later. Production is not meant to start until early 2024, and the release date is slated for Dec 19, 2025.
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