Star Wars’ return to theaters finally starts to take shape

Shortly after acquiring Lucasfilm in 2012, Disney immediately got to work on bringing Star Wars back to movie theaters. Disney ended up releasing five movies in five years, and although those movies combined to generate billions of dollars at the worldwide box office, fans and critics alike were underwhelmed by the sequel trilogy and Solo.

Disney took a break after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, but almost four years later, Disney’s next attempt to revive the iconic film franchise is taking shape.

On Tuesday, June 13, Disney updated its movie release schedule, delaying six Marvel movies and all three Avatar sequels in the process. That overhaul also involved shifting one previously announced — but untitled — Star Wars movie from December 19, 2025 to May 22, 2026, and adding another Star Wars movie to the calendar on December 18, 2026.

As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, that leaves us with three dated Star Wars movies:

• Untitled Star Wars movie 1 | May 22, 2026
• Untitled Star Wars movie 2 | December 18, 2026
• Untitled Star Wars movie 3 | December 17, 2027

Wouldn’t you know it — Lucasfilm just happened to announce three new Star Wars movies at Star Wars Celebration 2023! Those movies are James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi movie, the New Jedi Order movie from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (featuring Daisy Ridley’s return as Rey), and Dave Filoni’s movie that will unify and conclude the Mandoverse shows.

According to THR, “the Ridley feature is furthest along in development and is likely to open on” May 22, 2026. As for the other two, your guess is as good as ours.

There’s also a Taika Waititi Star Wars movie, but here is his latest comment about it (via THR): “I’ve got a really good idea for it. It’s just as with all films, it’s this middle part. You’re like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ And then you look at all of those films that are so great, you’re like, ‘Well, I guess they can’t meet some smuggler with an alien sidekick.’”

By the time Disney’s next Star Wars movie hits theaters, it will have been more than six years since The Rise of Skywalker debuted. While Episode IX might have left a bad taste in all of our mouths, it’s encouraging to see the studio take a beat to get it right the second time around. In the meantime, we’ve got plenty of Star Wars TV to watch.