James Mangold's Star Wars Movie Won't be 'Handcuffed' to Lore

Director James Mangold has shared new details on his upcoming movie, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, and it sounds unlike anything we've seen in the Star Wars universe before.

Mangold, who is currently promoting Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, is also actively developing his take on Star Wars. It's an origin story, set the farthest back a live-action Star Wars film has dared to go so far.

According to the director, he's more interested in telling a compelling story than pleasing everybody. "The Star Wars movie would be taking place 25,000 years before any known Star Wars movies takes place," Mangold tells MovieWeb.

Rey and Kylo Ren clash in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Mangold's movie is set 25,000 years before this fight takes place. Disney

"It's an area and a playground that I've always [wanted to explore] and that I was inspired by as a teenager. I'm not that interested in being handcuffed by so much lore at this point that it's almost immovable, and you can't please anybody."

For a director who's helmed multiple box office successes, including Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line with Joaquin Phoenix and Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi is undoubtedly his biggest project yet.

It's a collaboration with showrunner Beau Willimon, who co-wrote the critically acclaimed Star Wars series Andor on Disney+, as well as gripping political dramas including House of Cards and The Ides of March.

It goes without saying there's little relation to the last theatrical release, 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, given this one happens multiple millennia before. That, for Mangold, is the most liberating appeal.

"To me, the really important aspects are the freedom to make something new. Beau and I, in relation to Star Wars, have been working on a script, and we'll see what happens [...] Do we find a way on the page to say something original?"

Will there be a sequel to The Rise of Skywalker?

In The Rise of Skywalker, the rebels manage to amass an army and take the fight to the evil Emperor Palpatine, who threatened to take over the galaxy with the biggest military force ever seen. The story wrapped up nicely, but that's not to say The Rise of Skywalker is the conclusion of Rey's saga.

An untitled Star Wars film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is currently in development. Set 15 years out from Rise of Skywalker, it features Jedi Master Rey Skywalker (Daisy Ridley) as she builds a new Jedi Order after the events of the sequel trilogy.