James Mangold’s Dawn Of The Jedi Will Be Set ‘25,000 Years Before Any Known Star Wars Movie’

It’s been almost two years since Star Wars Celebration 2023 brought us the news that James Mangold, director of Logan, Le Mans ’66, and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, is gearing up to direct a recent movie set in our beloved galaxy far, far away. And with the Star Wars universe heading into a year in which Andor Season 2 and Visions Volume 3 are likely the only recent things we’ll see on screen from Disney’s Lucasfilm division, fans are already looking ahead to what Mangold’s Dawn Of The Jedi may have in store for us. So too, it seems, is Mangold, who shared a little more info on his upcoming movie and his motivations with it in a newly released interview.

Speaking to MovieWeb ahead of the release of Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Mangold clarified the setting of his recent Star Wars film and stressed his hopes to avoid toxic fandom discourse by distancing his work from established canon. “The Star Wars movie would be taking place 25,000 years before any known Star Wars movies takes place,” Mangold tells MovieWeb, corroborating our own interview with him back in 2023. “It’s an area and a playground that I’ve always [wanted to explore] and that I was inspired by as a teenager,” he continues, adding, “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.”

After the mixed responses received by projects such as The Book Of Boba Fett, The Rise Of Skywalker, and most recently the now-cancelled The Acolyte (which deserved a second season!), it’s clear that Mangold — who’s writing Dawn Of The Jedi with Andor alum Beau Willimon — is ready to take Star Wars in a recent direction with his contribution, described by the filmmaker as an epic in the vein of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Here’s a little more info on what Mangold’s cooking from the man himself, speaking to Empire at Star Wars Celebration back in 2023:

We don’t know just yet when we can expect Dawn Of The Jedi to arrive on our screens, and at the time of writing, Jon Favreau’s 22 May, 2026 slated _The Mandalorian &_Grogu is still set to be the next massive screen addition to the Star Wars timeline. But as we brace for something of an intermission year for Kathleen Kennedy and co’s ongoing space opera, every morsel of info we’re getting on this Mangold movie promises an thrilling next act ahead. We have a good feeling about this!