Patty Jenkins Back Working on a “Shelved” Star Wars Movie
Patty Jenkins became really famous when she decided to direct a ‘Wonder Woman’ movie for the DCEU. The movie was a huge success and got Jenkins the record for the biggest opening weekend for a movie directed by a woman. Soon after, she said she was going to direct ‘Wonder Woman 2,’ but she almost left the project because she wasn’t happy with the pay offer from Warner Bros. (WB).
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ was supposed to come out in the U.S. on June 5, 2020, but was delayed to December 25, 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was first planned to release on November 1, 2019, but when it finally came out, it got mixed reviews and didn’t make much money. This is seen by some as the start of a downhill trend. Meanwhile, Jenkins made a deal with Disney to direct a ‘Rogue Squadron’ movie, which was announced in 2020 but then put on hold and faded into the background for years. Jenkins said she left that project to possibly work on ‘Wonder Woman 3.’ Even after James Gunn and Peter Safran restarted the DCEU as the DCU, there was still some hope that Jenkins and Gal Gadot would come back to the ‘Wonder Woman’ series, but it was eventually confirmed that this wouldn’t happen.
Jenkins recently said on the TCM/Max podcast, ‘Talking Pictures,’ that she’s working on the movie again after the actors’ strike ended. It looks like she signed a new deal while the strike was going on.
So, when I left ‘Star Wars’ to do ‘Wonder Woman 3 ,’ I thought maybe I’ll come back to ‘Star Wars’ after ‘Wonder Woman 3 ‘. So we did a deal for that to happen, started a deal, but I thought I was doing ‘Wonder Woman.’ When that went away, Lucasfilm and I were like, oh, we gotta finish this deal. We finished the deal right as the strike was happening. So I now owe a draft of ‘Star Wars’ and so we will see what happens there. You know, like, who knows?
Jenkins decided to direct the movie because she wanted to create a tribute to her late father, Capt. William T. Jenkins, a U.S. Air Force pilot who served during the Vietnam War and was awarded a Silver Star. She’s particularly interested in aerial action and wants to bring that passion to the screen.
And so we will see what happens there. You know, like, who knows? It’s hard, they have a hard job in front of them of what’s the first movie they’re gonna do. They have other directors who have been working, but I am now, you know, I’m back on doing ‘Rogue Squadron’ and we’ll see what happens. We need to develop, you know, get it to where we’re both super happy with it.
Jenkins still needs to give the studio a script, and after that, anything’s possible. The studio hasn’t officially said anything about the project since their last update 15 months ago.
Do you think Jenkins should direct ‘Rogue Squadron’? Drop your thoughts in the comments!
