Every Canceled Star Wars Project Under Kathleen Kennedy That Could be Revived After Her Star Wars Exit

Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down as President of Lucasfilm after 14 years guiding the Star Wars saga into the modern era, with her departure taking effect this week. While she will continue as a producer on The Mandalorian and Grogu (coming May 22) and Star Wars: Starfighter (2027), she will pursue other projects outside Lucasfilm as an independent producer.

With her leaving this space opera behind, it seems like a good time to look back at all those canceled Star Wars projects that never got to materialize under Kennedy’s presidency for one too many reasons, and which could now be revived. Without further ado, let’s dive right in!

1 David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ Star Wars Trilogy

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the masterminds behind the Game of Thrones television series, were attached to a Star Wars trilogy almost a decade ago, back in 2018. But this was notably before the disastrous final season of the smash-hit book-based TV show, which was so controversial that it continues to be panned years later. Nevertheless, Lucasfilm shelved that project about a year later.

Years later, while promoting their movie 3 Body Problem, they shared their take on the film. Benioff said (via THR), “We wanted to do The First Jedi. Basically, how the Jedi Order came to be, why it came to be, the first lightsaber…” Weiss added dryly, “And we were annoyed as hell when [Rian Johnson, the duo’s longtime friend and 3BP producer] called his movie The Last Jedi. He completely destroyed the obvious title for what we were working on.” 

Getting candid about why the deal went south, Benioff said,

[Lucasfilm] ended up not wanting to do a First Jedi story. We had a very specific story idea in mind, and ultimately, they decided they didn’t want to do that. And we totally get it. It’s their company and their IP, but we weren’t the droids they were looking for.

While their deal was canceled, their overall concept might still move forward, as Lucasfilm announced a movie titled Dawn of the Jedi, directed by James Mangold, in 2023.

2 The Boba Fett Movie

A solo movie on Boba Fett has long been anticipated by fans, and even more so by Lucasfilm. This is because Lucasfilm had actually considered a film on the character since at least 2010, with the idea being revived by Disney when it took over the franchise two years later, in 2012. Six years later, Disney even announced a film on the bounty hunter in 2018.

This one was intended to be a gritty, potentially R-rated spaghetti Western directed by James Mangold and was supposed to be a Star Wars anthology film. However, that film could never really escape development hell, ultimately being canceled following the disastrous box-office failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story that year. 

Solo’s failure led Lucasfilm to halt anthology spinoffs and shift focus to series like The Mandalorian. Of course, fans got The Book of Boba Fett as a consolation prize (streaming on Disney+) for that Boba Fett flick. But with the franchise under new masterminds, hopefully things will just be different (via Screen Rant).

3 Rogue Squadron

Around a little over half a decade ago, Kathleen Kennedy herself announced that Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins was tapped to helm Rogue Squadron, a one-off film set in the Star Wars universe. However, much to fans’ disappointment, the former Lucasfilm prez pulled the project from the development slate without any explanation.

But there’s more: In 2024, Jenkins offered fans more insight into this creative decision while promising a Rogue Squadron film after all. On the Talking Pictures Podcast, she said,

When I left Star Wars to do Wonder Woman 3, and I started working on that, we talked about, ‘Well, maybe I’ll come back to Star Wars after Wonder Woman 3.’ So when Wonder Woman 3 went away, Lucasfilm and I were like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to finish this deal.’ We finished the deal right as the strike was beginning. So I now owe a draft of Star Wars. So we will see what happens there. Who knows?

Since then, not many insights have been offered into the film, but hopefully, that would change now, following the latest turn of events (via Screen Rant).

4 The Knights of the Old Republic Film

Rumors of the existence of a Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) film have been surfacing since 2023, while the KOTOR video game continues to rage as a beloved video game despite not officially being canon (see Star Wars News). 

Unfortunately, Lucasfilm wasn’t interested in releasing a single film per year in theaters. Consequently, it didn’t take too long for those film rumors to fizzle out and die down as soon as they started. Still, there are possibilities of those rumors coming true now, who knows?

5 The Obi-Wan Kenobi Film Trilogy

While fans got the Obi-Wan Kenobi television series, it was originally intended to be a film trilogy. It was initially planned as a film centered on the Jedi Master’s confrontations with the Imperial Army and Darth Vader, with writer Stuart Beattie wanting it to be a trilogy and seeking Lucasfilm’s support to make it happen.

Talking to Star Wars Theory on YouTube, he also got candid about the same, saying,

When Disney took over, I thought they were probably going to do an Obi-Wan movie because that’s the one everyone wants, but I wasn’t hearing anything about it. So, I started coming up with my own ideas and went up to Lucasfilm and pitched them. That’s what actually got the ball rolling, since they were busy with Rogue One and Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Since Beattie’s pitch was quite amazing, it didn’t take long for it to get approved, with him becoming one of the key writers. But the unexpected part was when Disney decided to turn it into a television series, which was the opposite of what the writer had planned. He explained,

They did ask me in the meeting if it was a movie or a show, and I said, No, it’s a movie, it’s actually three movies I had planned for him [Obi-Wan]. Then it wasn’t until a year later they were like, hey, let’s do it as a show.

Well, a major reason behind the trilogy’s cancellation was Disney’s decision not to make any more spin-off films after the disaster that was Solo. 

6 JD Dillard’s Untitled Star Wars Project

In 2020, it was reported that filmmaker JD Dillard had been tapped alongside Matt Owens to develop a new, untitled Star Wars project. At the time, it was undecided if the project was supposed to be for the big screens or Disney’s streaming platform, and neither were the plot, character, and setting details of the project known (via The Hollywood Reporter).

However, Dillard’s tenure ended almost as quickly as it started. By 2022, it was reported that the director was no longer developing the said project for Lucasfilm. Per The Wrap, Dillard himself confirmed that the said piece was “unfortunately no longer a thing,” explaining,

It was not for lack of trying.

But that didn’t mean that he was totally done with the idea of making a space movie, but rather, just that this time, “it will be an original idea.” Well, we sure hope it’s within the Star Wars franchise!

7 Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy

Rian Johnson was planning another Star Wars trilogy for the space opera. This trilogy would have seen him also set to write and direct the first one, with longtime collaborator Ram Bergman onboard to produce. And while it didn’t get canceled exactly, it probably won’t be happening anytime soon. Per StarWars.com,

As writer-director of The Last Jedi, Johnson conceived and realized a powerful film of which Lucasfilm and Disney are immensely proud. In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.

That news came out in 2017. Then, a little over half a decade later, in 2023, Kathleen Kennedy at the Star Wars Celebration (via Empire Magazine):

Rian had such a gigantic success with Knives Out that he’s very committed to try and get that done. So it’ll be a while. And we have to work three, five years in advance on what we’re doing. So that’s where that sits. But we love him.

Well, it’s been a while since that announcement, so we sure hope Rian Johnson is ready to come back and work on the project promised to us so long ago under Kennedy’s regime!

8 Guillermo del Toro’s Jabba the Hutt Film

Guillermo del Toro, the master of unparalleled horror, was reported to be busy developing a film on Jabba the Hutt, the slug-like gangster. This one was reportedly supposed to detail the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt before the events of A New Hope, with del Toro envisioning a mob story similar to Scarface.

However, the project, which he developed with screenwriter David S. Goyer around 2017, ultimately fell through. This was because it reportedly wasn’t his property or money. Still, del Toro viewed the entire experience as valuable practice, developing a rich world and story before its cancellation. As he confirmed (via Variety),

We had the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt, so I was super happy. We were doing a lot of stuff, and then it’s not my property, it’s not my money, and then it’s one of those 30 screenplays that goes away. Sometimes I’m bitter, sometimes I’m not. I always turn to my team and say, ‘Good practice, guys. Good practice. We designed a great world. We designed great stuff. We learned.’

Goyer, on the other hand, first talked about the existence of this scrapped Star Wars project on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. At the time, he said that “a lot of cool artwork” was produced for it. The screenwriter famous for his superhero scripts, like Batman Begins and Man of Steel, shared,

I wrote an unproduced ‘Star Wars’ movie that Guillermo del Toro was going to direct. That was about four years ago. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on at Lucasfilm at the time. It’s a cool script… You have to ask him about it.

As interesting as that sounds, del Toro should really consider going back to work on the said project and working it all out. Because if it’s Guillermo del Toro helming, what could possibly go wrong?!

9 Taika Waititi’s Untitled Star Wars Project

This one might be something that not many fans may be looking forward to after the disaster that was the highly anticipated Thor: Love and Thunder, but Taika Waititi did, in fact, announce his upcoming work on a Star Wars film as a director and co-writer in 2020. 

At the red carpet premiere of his flick Next Goal Wins, he animatedly told Variety about it,

It will be … dramatic pause… a Taika Waititi film. It’s gonna piss people off [Laughs].

Unfortunately for him, that project couldn’t earn many major updates. Plus, his name wasn’t on any Lucasfilm development slates either. But there’s always room for more, so Waititi might as well try his hand at this space opera lore too. (- But only if he’s set to bring about a masterpiece like Thor: Ragnarok, and not Love and Thunder!)

10 Star Wars Detours

Last and barely the least, Star Wars Detours. For the die-hard fans of the space franchise, this entry must really sting because this project wasn’t stuck in the development or production hell. Rather, it became the victim of cancellation after it had already been filmed, edited, directed, and completed its production.

In fact, this story even had a trailer released, and everything was practically all set and ready to go. However, this show got canceled at the very last minute, ending up as an unaired animated comedy series from the Star Wars lore. For the record, it offered a comedic take on what happened between the prequel trilogy (Episodes I–III) and the original trilogy (Episodes IV–VI).

As fun as that sounds, it was even produced by Lucasfilm Animation in collaboration with Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. But despite 39 episodes of the show already having been produced, their release has been on hold since 2013, following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm.

Filoni, as well as Brennan, will also report to Alan Bergman, who is the co-Chairman of Disney Entertainment (via The Hollywood Reporter). And now that new creative control has taken over Star Wars, we sure do hope that all these previous wrongs will be corrected and more updates will be provided on these aforementioned canceled projects pretty soon.

Years after its making, in June 2021, Seth Green was asked if he knew when the show could potentially be released. At the time, he told Entertainment Weekly,

The most recent conversations I’ve had with anybody who would be in a position to say so say that it’s not soon. … the way it’s been explained to me is that there hasn’t been enough interest high enough up to go through what it would take to put it out, and that there isn’t an interest in releasing this content on Disney+ from Lucasfilm.

However, with the franchise undergoing this recent major change, we sure hope things will change for this respective piece as well.

By the way, in the wake of Kathleen Kennedy’s departure from the Star Wars lore, Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni has now been promoted to oversee the creative direction of the company as the new President and Chief Creative Officer of Lucasfilm. President & GM of the Lucasfilm business, Lynwen Brennan, meanwhile, will handle the business side as the new co-President of Lucasfilm.

Don’t you agree? What’s your take on all this? Do you have other projects in mind that you wish to see materialize in the Star Wars lore now that Dave Filoni is the CCO and President of Lucasfilm?

Whatever your thoughts and opinions on this may be, make sure to share them with us in the comments section below, and don’t forget to stay tuned with FandomWire for more updates!