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“Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight is set to write the screenplay for the untitled “Star Wars” movie that Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (“Ms. Marvel”) is attached to direct, as original screenwriters Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson have departed the project, Variety has confirmed.
The movie is widely expected to be among Lucasfilm’s first “Star Wars” films since 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” More information about the movie, including a possible title, is expected to be announced at the Star Wars Celebration in London in April. (A representative for Lucasfilm did not respond to a request for comment.)
Knight is a veteran screenwriter who launched his career specializing in gritty crime dramas like 2002’s “Dirty Pretty Things” and 2007’s “Eastern Promises,” eventually branching out to lighthearted dramedies (2014’s “The Hundred-Foot Journey”), war thrillers (2016’s “Allied”), and biopics (2021’s “Spencer”). He also created and executive produced the BBC period crime drama “Peaky Blinders,” which streams on Netflix in the US.
Lindelof — best known as the co-creator of the TV series “Lost,” “The Leftovers” and “Watchmen” — brought on Britt-Gibson (“Counterpart,” “Into the Badlands”) to write a “Star Wars” movie together. After turning in a draft earlier this year, the duo departed the project in February, becoming the latest creatives to part ways with Lucasfilm after signing on to develop one or multiple new “Star Wars” film projects to great fanfare.
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Earlier in March, Variety reported that separate movies — one shepherded by director Patty Jenkins, the other by producer (and Marvel Studios chief) Kevin Feige — had been shelved by Lucasfilm and were no longer in active development. Director J.D. Dillard (“Devotion”) told TheWrap in November 2022 that he was no longer developing a “Star Wars” project at the studio.
In October 2019, “Game of Thrones” executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss walked away from a series of “Star Wars” films they were set to write and produce, which were first announced 20 months earlier. In September 2017, Luscasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy fired Colin Trevorrow from what became “The Rise of Skywalker”; three months earlier, she fired Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from 2018’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” even though the film had completed a large fraction of principal photography. While Gareth Edwards retained directing credit on 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” he was replaced by Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton,” “The Bourne Legacy”) for extensive reshoots on the project. (Gilroy went on to create the “Rogue One” prequel series “Andor” for Disney+, which received some of the strongest reviews of any “Star Wars” project, film or TV, when it premiered in September 2022.)
The “Star Wars” films known to still be active at Lucasfilm include a project from filmmaker Taika Waititi in which he would likely star, as well as a prospective film from Shawn Levy that would follow his commitments to direct “Deadpool 3” and complete work on the Netflix limited series “All the Light We Cannot See,” which Levy developed with Knight.
Above the Line first reported the news about Lindelof and Britt-Gibson.
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