George Nolfi, known for his screenplay work on movies such as The Bourne Ultimatum and Ocean’s 12, has been tapped to write New Jedi Order, the Daisy Ridley-centric Star Wars movie.
The hiring signals continued faith in the project, which was announced to great fanfare almost two years ago at Star Wars Celebration in London, but has seen several high-profile writers fall into the trash compactor.
Documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is due to make her narrative feature debut with the project, with Ridley due to reprise the role of lightsaber-wielding Rey Skywalker, the character she played Disney’s sequel trilogy. The new story is said to take place 15 years after the events seen in 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, with Ridley’s character now a mentor to a new crop of Jedis.
Damon Lindelof (Watchmen, Lost) and Justin Britt-Gibson were the initial writers on the project, working on it before Obaid-Chinoy was brought on. By the time Ridley was revealed as returning in April 2023, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight was clacking away at the keyboard. But by October 2024, he was no longer on the project.
The script delays have pushed back any hoped-for production starts for the project, which at one point was being eyed to follow the recently wrapped feature The Mandalorian and Grogu, which will be released May 22, 2026. Instead, the next Star Wars movie that will shoot will be the untitled project from director Shawn Levy. That one got a major boost by capturing the interest of Ryan Gosling, who is now in negotiations to star in it, as The Hollywood Reporter exclusively revealed this week.
Nolfi is known for writing elevated thrillers across a variety of genres and for establishing strong relationships with his actors. He worked on two Bourne action thrillers with Matt Damon, not to mention Ocean’s 12, before going on to make his directorial debut with The Adjustment Bureau, a 2011 sci-fi thriller that starred the actor as well as Emily Blunt. He directed and co-wrote 2020’s The Banker, a period race drama that starred Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson, and then reunited with Mackie for 2024’s Elevation, an indie postapocalyptic thriller.
Nolfi is repped by CAA and Myman Greenspan.
