Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, far right, at Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023
Lucasfilm on Friday announced that Oscar- and Emmy-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy will direct an upcoming Star Wars movie, starring Daisy Ridley.
In its Studio Showcase at Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023, Lucasflim said Ridley would reprise her role as Rey in the new film, which would take place after 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. According to Variety magazine, the film would be written by Steven Knight and focus on Rey’s efforts to build a new Jedi Order after the events of Skywalker.
“I have always been attracted to the heroes’ journey and the world needs more heroes!” Obaid-Chinoy told the audience at Celebration. “The blueprints of the heroes we see on screen should be rooted in reality—I’ve spent my life meeting real life heroes, people who have overcome the most oppressive empires and battled impossible odds and that to me is the heart of Star Wars, which is why I was attracted to the promise of a new Jedi Order,” she added.
Obaid-Chinoy is the first woman, and the first person of color, to direct a film in the Star Wars franchise. Earlier, she directed two episodes of Ms. Marvel, a show about a Pakistani-American superhero produced by Marvel Films, which is a subsidiary of Disney, as is Star Wars.
Media outlets have been reporting on Obaid-Chinoy’s involvement with Star Wars since October 2022, when rumors started circulating of her directing the next Star Wars film. She is also currently working on an adaptation of the novel Brilliance, produced by Will Smith, about people born with super powers.
Apart from Obaid-Chinoy, Lucasfilm also announced two additional Star Wars films—one to be directed by James Mangold and focusing on the dawn of the Jedi and the second by Dave Filoni, which would close out the interconnected stories currently being told on TV in The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka. None of the movies announced have release dates, as yet.