A new Star Wars movie is on the way from Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny director James Mangold, and it will take place tens of thousands of years ago in the Star Wars timeline.
Why place it so far in the past? Well, it's because Mangold doesn't want his hands tied by the formidable Star Wars canon.
“The Star Wars movie would take place 25,000 years before any known Star Wars movie is made,” he told MovieWeb. “It's an area and playground that I've always [wanted to explore] and what I was inspired by when I was a teenager. “I'm not that interested in being handcuffed by so much history right now that it's almost set in stone and you can't please anyone.”
Mangold's film will explore the origins of the Force. This is not the first time he has explained his reasoning for going back so far. “When I mentioned to Kathy [Kennedy, Lucasfilm president] “The idea she had of going back, really back, I was surprised that it excited her and the other wonderful people she works with at Lucasfilm,” he said in 2023. “For me, it's about, I want to be a part of the saga , but I also don't want to keep so much story up in the air that you can hardly tell a story. And what I really wanted to do, what I told him, was that we can do a kind of Ten Commandments of Strength, you know? origin of how Strength came to be known, understood, exercised and harnessed.”
There is no release date yet for Mangold's film. While you wait, check out our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows for everything the galaxy far, far away has in store.