During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lucasfilm announced that a Star Wars spin-off film titled Rogue Squadron was in development. Patty Jenkins would direct the film after her critically acclaimed Wonder Woman came out in 2017, but before Wonder Woman 1984. The studio produced a high-budget video announcing the project at Disney’s Investor Day, where Jenkins discussed her Air Force background and her desire to make a movie like Top Gun set in the Star Wars universe. After this big reveal by Lucasfilm, the film faded into oblivion, as many Star Wars projects have since Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker.
We at Knight Edge Media learned exclusively that Rogue Squadron went through multiple iterations at Lucasfilm. Surprisingly, Patty Jenkins wasn’t the original director of the movie. The original plan dates back to when J.D. Dillard was attached to write and direct an untitled Star Wars film. While it wasn’t revealed until 2020, he had actually been working on it since 2018 with screenwriter Matt Owens (Luke Cage, One Piece). This was the first version of Rogue Squadron that the studio put into early development. After leaving the project, Dillard later directed the Korean War fighter-pilot movie Devotion, starring Jonathan Majors, in 2022. During the press tour for Devotion, Dillard teased that his Star Wars film was “inspired by the TIE Fighter PC game he played as a kid” (via SlashFilm).
The first version of the film never went anywhere, and Patty Jenkins joined at the end of 2020 to reinvent the project. However, as we would learn, the second version also never went anywhere, and Lucasfilm began shifting its focus to Disney+ shows under former CEO Bob Chapek’s mandate. The Mandalorian had become a global smash hit, and the studio wanted to develop more projects set in the “Mando-Verse”. In 2024, Jenkins briefly mentioned working on the movie version of Rogue Squadron again, but it was before the WGA Writers Strike of 2023.
Finally, in late 2022, a new secret project entered development under the working title Ghost Track 17 (via Star Wars News Net). The project remained untitled but would be produced by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni and set in the Mandalorian universe. This would have been the third version of the project, specifically an adaptation of Rogue Squadron for Disney+. The series would be co-showrun by Rick Famuyiwa (Dope, The Mandalorian) and Rayna McClendon. McClendon consulted on the Obi-Wan Kenobi series and was part of the original Star Wars writers’ room with Damon Lindelof (via The Hollywood Reporter). Surprisingly, McClendon actually helped co-write an earlier draft of Star Wars: New Jedi Order with Lindelof before Justin Britt-Gibson officially took over. Nevertheless, Famuyiwa’s series eventually “fell apart” and was shelved (via The Wrap). Since then, Lucasfilm put everything in theatrical on hold in favor of The Mandalorian & Grogu and then Star Wars: Starfighter. However, they may be shifting their focus back to theatrical films as Star Wars: Episode X finally picks up steam, with Jon Watts attached to a new trilogy and a script by Simon Kinberg.
Small Update: Nick and Carlton Cuse were attached to an untitled Star Wars project in 2025, and it’s rumored to involve X-Wing pilots, though it’s unknown if it’s Rogue Squadron.
Shoutout to @FivesWalker for help on this story.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron has no set release date
