‘Peaky Blinders’ creator Steven Knight steps in after Damon Lindelof exits new ‘Star Wars’ project

Jordan Hoffman
·3 min read
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Never tell “Star Wars” the odds!

Things are moving faster than a Mos Espa podrace over at Lucasfilm. On Wednesday, we wrote that heavyweight writer-producer Damon Lindelof and his new partner (padawan?) Justin Britt-Gibson had walked away as writers of the upcoming (and untitled) “Star Wars” film. The project, currently more shrouded in more mystery than Emperor Palpatine, is set to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a “Ms. Marvel” vet and director-producer on a long list of documentaries.

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But the Kathleen Kennedy-led production shingle has found its new scribe. Steven Knight, the writer-director of Tom Hardy vehicle “Locke” and creator of “Peaky Blinders,” is currently suiting up to travel to that galaxy far, far away. The British Knight (who is also a “CBE,” which is only one step down from being a knight!) has also written the screenplay for the Steven Frears film “Dirty Pretty Things,” the David Cronenberg film “Eastern Promises,” and the underrated Robert Zemeckis spy thriller “Allied.” (The most recent feature he wrote and also directed was “Serenity,” the Matthew McConaughey–Anne Hathaway project that was not particularly well-received by critics or audiences.) 

In addition to “Peaky Blinders,” Knight’s television work includes creating the Apple TV+ series “See,” starring Jason Momoa, and the ultra-dark BBC “Christmas Carol” which starred Guy Pearce and Andy Serkis. 

Lucasfilm’s traveling annual pep rally, Star Wars Celebration, is set for early April in London, and with Knight on board all systems seem to go for some kind of announcement. A title, a vague list of characters, some initial character sketches, surely something to get the dorks all worked up is in order. While “Star Wars” is currently doing well as a Disney+ television property, with “Andor” and “The Mandalorian” exciting fans and the highly anticipated “Ahsoka” coming later this year, there hasn’t been a new movie in theaters since J.J. Abrams’s “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019. While that title did quite well at the box office ($1.07 billion worldwide) there are many fans who feel like it did not live up to its potential story-wise. (This is me being very diplomatic about it!)

Since then, there have been a lot of false starts. Earlier this year, Lucasfilm pulled the plug on Patty Jenkins’s “Top Gun”-esque “Rogue Squadron” project. Previously, the company announced a deal with “Game of Thrones” developers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to create a trilogy of films that now seems off the table. Earlier, “The Last Jedi” writer-director Rian Johnson was commissioned to create a trilogy of his own, which doesn’t seem to be in the cards either. Recently, however, Taika Waititi, was said to be creating a Star Wars project for him to write, direct, and star in himself. The Oscar-winner has directed an episode of “The Mandalorian,” and also voiced the deep-cut character IG-88. But whatever this new Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy/Steven Knight this is is next, and hopefully, many Bothans need not die to bring us more information. 

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