Though Lucasfilm has yet to officially confirm that the project is back on track, a recent report claimed that the Rogue Squadron movie we first heard about back in 2020 was once again in active development.
It was assumed that Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins' feature was well and truly dead in the water at this stage, but the project is now believed to be moving forward, and the studio may have found its lead.
According to scooper MTTSH, Chris Pine is in talks to star.
Pine played Captain James T. Kirk in Paramount's rebooted Star Trek trilogy, and was reportedly all set to return for a fourth film before the decision was made to take the franchise in a different direction with an all-new cast. It's entirely possible that the actor simply got tired of waiting and left the Final Frontier behind to explore the Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Jenkins reportedly parted ways with the movie to focus on directing the now defunct Wonder Woman 3 amid rumored creative differences with Kathleen Kennedy, and it was officially taken off Lucasfilm's release schedule back in 2022.
"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," the filmmaker explained to Collider back in March. "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? "
"It's hard, they have a hard job in front of them of what's the first movie they're gonna do," she continued. "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."
It's nice to hear that Jenkins will (hopefully) still get the opportunity to see this movie to fruition, since she has such a personal connection to the material.
"When [my father] lost his life in service to [the United States], it ignited a desire in me to turn all of that tragedy and thrill into one day making the greatest fighter pilot movie of all time," she said back when the project was first announced. "But try as I might and look as I did, I couldn't find the right story ever. I kept looking and looking, but I just couldn't find the right one. Now I found a story about two things I love."
Though the story might have undergone a few changes since, a previously-released logline reads: "Rogue Squadron will introduce a new generation of starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy."