Ms. Marvel Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Will Direct a New Star Wars Movie Co-Written by Damon Lindelof

The long-rumored Star Wars project written by Damon Lindelof has managed to find its director in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.



While things have been quiet on the film front for Star Wars, a new report from Deadline has revealed that Obaid-Chinoy has been hired to direct Lindelof's screenplay. There has been buzz that Lindelof was circling a Star Wars movie in March 2022, with indications that he was spotted on the Disney lot surfacing in August 2022. The report also indicates that another writer will be attached to the film to work with Lindelof, although the co-writer was not identified in the report. The script is still being written, indicating that production is likely a while away, but both Lindelof and Lucasfilm wanted to hire a director early to make sure that they could provide input on the direction of the story.



Obaid-Chinoy's name may be familiar with Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, as she directed two episodes of the first season of the Disney Plus series Ms. Marvel, which represents one of her first forays into franchise work. Some of her other work includes a number of documentaries, including Saving Face and A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness (which netted her two Academy Awards for Best Short Subject Documentary). She's also delved into animated films with 3 Bahadur trilogy. Her body of work thus far has focused on the experiences of Pakistani people, so it remains to be seen if her foray into the galaxy far, far away may do the same.



Lindelof, in the meantime, has a long history with Bad Robot, which worked on Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Lindelof's Bad Robot collaborations include writing 45 episodes of Lost and executive producing the vast majority of the episodes of the series, along with doing uncredited script work on Star Trek (2009) and credited work on Star Trek Into Darkness. Outside of Bad Robot, Lindelof also worked on the screenplays for Prometheus and World War Z. Lindelof's most acclaimed work has been with HBO, giving them three seasons of The Leftovers and miniseries serving as a sequel to the DC Comics graphic novel Watchmen.



It was revealed back in 2018 that Lucasfilm was going to shift their long-term plans toward streaming as they decided to put the future of the film franchise on hiatus once The Rise of Skywalker was finished and released. Since then, there have been a number of film projects announced with their fates unknown, most infamously Rogue Squadron, which went from being the first dated Star Wars film in years to quietly being shelved, potentially to be revisited at a later date. Lucasfilm opted not to give updates on their film slates to provide updates on future Star Wars films at Celebration Anaheim and Disney D23 earlier this year, instead keeping their focus on the various Star Wars shows in the pipeline (plus Willow) and the still-untitled fifth and final Indiana Jones film.



Lucasfilm has indicated that they see no reason to rush the next few Star Wars movies, and that they do not want to move forward on future projects until they are at a place where they think that they can make the best possible films. Deadline says that Obaid-Chinoy and Lindelof's project has the most momentum out of the many proposed Star Wars spin-offs that are in development, but whether or not that means that it will be the first out the gate remains to be seen.



The next two theatrically-released Star Wars films are tentatively scheduled to arrive on December 19, 2025, and December 17, 2027.



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