New Star Wars movies announced as part of Star Wars Celebration

Are you ready to return to a galaxy far, far away? As part of 2023's official Star Wars Celebration, several new Star Wars movies have been confirmed by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. The various movies will span different corners of the sci-fi canon. Scroll down for all the details.

Daisy Ridley set to return as Rey

Following the events of 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Daisy Ridley's emergent Jedi Rey will return to our screens. The movie (as yet untitled) will be helmed by Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinnoy.

"As you can see by all the television we've been doing, we're exploring a lot of different storylines. This really spawns from what George Lucas said years ago, that he created Star Wars to move forward and backward along a mythological timeline," Kennedy said. "Now we're looking to broaden that timeline, building a rich future, expanding upon the present, going deep into the past to tell our stories, and we're thrilled to be working with some of the best and most passionate filmmakers on projects that will span the past, the present, and the future."

Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight will be writing the script. Kennedy elaborated: "Well we’re 15 years out from ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ so we’re post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray. There’s a lot of discussion around, ‘Who are the Jedi? What are they doing? What’s the state of the galaxy?’ She’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order, based on the books, based on what she promised Luke, so that’s where we’re going.”

Mandalorian co-creator Jon Favreau raved about Ridley's return, saying: "It’s just exciting. I always find it really satisfying, encouraging when you have people who come through ‘Star Wars,’ come back to ‘Star Wars.’ It shows you how strong that community is and how big of a bond you develop. For Daisy to come back and be part of where this is going, I’m excited to see where all at what happens there.”

James Mangold's Jedi origin story will paint with bold colours

Director Mangold is a busy man, having boinged from the critically acclaimed Logan and Le Mans '66 to this year's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (due out June 30th). Mangold is seemingly destined to stay in the Lucasfilm popcorn sandbox by taking on a brand new Star Wars theatrical project that, he said, "is about the discovery of the Force".

Mangold told Empire Magazine “It takes place 25,000 years before Episode IV... I told Kathy [Kennedy] I wanted to make a kind of Bible movie, a kind of Ten Commandments of Star Wars – kind of a Cecil B DeMille film about the arrival of the Force, and that’s what I’ve been pecking away at between press events. That’s the idea.”

Star Wars goes Cecil B. DeMille? This we have to see. Kennedy said that Mangold’s movie will “tell the tale of the first Jedi to wield the Force and harness it as a liberating power in an era of chaos and oppression”.

File this one under 'seriously exciting'.

Dave Filoni's movie will bridge the gap between big and small screens

The Mandalorian producer Filoni will reportedly "focus on the New Republic and close out the interconnected stories told in The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and other Disney+ series".

Filoni told Collider: "The way I’ve been describing it is, if you grew up when I did you’re aware of the post-Return of the Jedi era that was presented to me. The New Republic is not a new idea. That is not something The Mandalorian created. That’s an old idea, it’s been around a long time. There are just things in Star Wars that we all seem to know if we’ve been around it a long time.

"There have been a lot of tremendous creatives over the years that have been telling stories in the era that spans the 30 years that now ends with The Force Awakens. But there's a large gap of time there. Things aren't that great when we begin The Force Awakens.

"So [Jon Favreau] and I looked at that time period, and when he knew he wanted The Mandalorian in it, one of the things I told him early on was, 'Well, I have this epilogue in Star Wars: Rebels that’s kind of dealing with that time period', which you've seen at the end with Sabina and Ahsoka going off. So, a lot of those threads start to come together, and then I looked at the bigger body of work that's been done and what's relevant, and a story will emerge out of that."