Peaky Blinders Creator Is Writing A New Star Wars Movie After Major Depatures

Steven Knight, the creator of the Peaky Blinders series, has come aboard to write a new Star Wars movie amid a major shakeup. Above the Line was first to report that Damon Lindelof (Lost) and Justin Britt-Gibson (Counterpart) were originally writing the film before dropping out. Variety reported that Knight is taking over writing responsibilities for the untitled movie for Lucasfilm.

The original director, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel), remains attached to direct.

Above the Line reported that the new movie will be announced at Star Wars Celebration in May via a "title and a brief synopsis." However, casting announcements are not expected to come soon. The movie is reportedly going to begin production in February 2024 and release on December 19, 2025.

Lindelof recently signaled his exit from the Star Wars universe, telling SlashFilm that the degree of difficulty to make a Star Wars film is "extremely, extremely, extremely high."

"If it can't be great, it shouldn't exist. That's all I'll say, because I have the same association with it as you do, which is, it's the first movie I saw sitting in my dad's lap, four years old, May of '77. I think it's possible that sometimes when you hold something in such high reverence and esteem, you start to get in the kitchen and you just go, 'Maybe I shouldn't be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.' We'll just leave it at that point."

Lindelof and Britt-Gibson are just the latest creative types to leave the Star Wars series. The Star Wars movies from Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins is no longer in active development, while Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B Weiss backed out of their own Star Wars trilogy before that. Other Star Wars shakeups included Jurassic World's Colin Trevorrow being fired from The Rise of Skywalker and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller being fired from Solo: A Star Wars Story.

In addition to the new Star Wars movie to be written by Knight, other Star Wars movie projects in the works include a film from Thor director Taika Waititi and a movie from Stranger Things director Shawn Levy.