Andor was such an unexpected, soaring success that we're surprised more of the team behind the series hasn't been snapped up quickly to work on other projects at Lucasfilm. Well, now one of them has – Beau Willimon, who was a core part of Tony Gilroy's writing team (he scripted the superb mini-arc set in the Narkina 5 prison complex), is now aboard to co-write big screen effort Star Wars: Dawn Of The Jedi with director James Mangold.
Mangold – who previously directed Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny for Lucasfilm – has been working on the script but also turning his attention to production on his Bob Dylan biodrama A Complete Unknown. So it makes sense him adding a co-writer to work on the Star Wars project currently known as Dawn Of The Jedi, which was announced last year at Star Wars Celebration in London.
“It takes place 25,000 years before Episode IV, and it’s about the discovery of the Force,” Mangold told Empire at the event. “I told Kathy [Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm] I wanted to make a kind of Bible movie, a kind of Ten Commandments of Star Wars – kind of a Cecil B. DeMille film about the arrival of the Force, and that’s what I’ve been pecking away at between press events. That’s the idea.”
And that's not the only Star Wars news to emerge — we now know that the likely next big screen story set in the galaxy far, far away, The Mandalorian & Grogu, has been set for a 22 May, 2026 release date.
In related Disney film release news, Toy Story 5 will emerge the same year, on 19 June, while the live-action take on Moana follows on 10 July (animated sequel Moana 2, don't forget, is dated for 29 November this year in the UK.)