Kathleen Kennedy Reveals James Mangold's Jedi And Force Origin Story "On Hold"

Kathleen Kennedy shared that James Mangold’s planned Jedi and Force origin story colloquially called Dawn of the Jedi is on hold.

In an exit interview with Deadline after announcing she’s stepping down as President of Lucasfilm, Kennedy shared an update on the film saying, “Jim Mangold and Beau Willimon wrote an incredible script, but it is definitely breaking the mold and it’s on hold.”

Later, she added, “Mangold’s is really on the back burner.”

Mangold’s film was announced at Star Wars Celebration in April 2023 with Lucasfilm sharing ain a press release that the film “will take audiences deep into the past, telling the tale of the first Jedi to wield the Force and harness it as a liberating power in an era of chaos and oppression.”

He told Variety following the film’s announcement, “It’s a chance to tell the entire story of its own, the birth of the force.”

“When I first talked to Kathy Kennedy about it, I just said, ‘I just see this opening to make kind of a ‘Ben-Hur’ or ‘The 10 Commandments’ about the birth of the force.’ The force has become a kind of religious legend that spans through all these movies. But where did it come from? How is it found? Who found it? Who was the first Jedi? And that’s what I’m writing right now,” he explained.

Additionally, he told Empire, “It takes place 25,000 years before Episode IV, and it’s about the discovery of the Force.”

“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.,” he added.

He shared more details about the film a couple of months later telling Gizmodo that he pitched a film that goes into the ancient past of the Star Wars universe, “I mentioned to Kathy [Kennedy, Lucasfilm president] the idea that I had about going backward—really far backward—I was surprised that it excited her and the other wonderful people she works with at Lucasfilm.”

“For me, it’s about, I want to be part of the saga, but I also don’t want to be holding so much lore in the air that you can hardly tell a story,” he continued. ” And what I really wanted to do, what I told her, was just can we make a kind of the Ten Commandments of the Force, you know? A kind of origin story of how the Force came to be known, understood, wielded, and harnessed.”

Last year in January 2025, Mangold reiterated to MovieWeb, “The Star Wars movie would be taking place 25,000 years before any known Star Wars movies takes place.”

As for why, he said, “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."

It is likely a good thing that this film is on hold as there’s a high probability that it will attempt to redefine the Force and change it. It will attempt to erode the fact that it is the “universal nature of which man is a part” as Archbishop Lazar so eloquently observed in his original review of Return of the Jedi from 1984.

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