Last month shooting on the Patty Jenkins Star Wars film, Rogue Squadron was announced not to be moving ahead as scheduled.

Curiously there was no accompanying announcement of a delay of the film's expected cinema release date.

We wondered if perhaps Wonder Woman 2's mediocrity had diminished the shine of Patty's name and there might be plans to dump her.

Later, one site claimed that Rogue Squadron had stalled on "creative differences" regarding the story.

At the time we hadn't been aware but later learned that she had previously claimed that they had been finishing the script in back in July.

It’s going amazing. I had been on it already for six months before I even announced that, so we’re pretty deep into it. We’re finishing a script, crewing up, and it’s all going wonderful.

So creative differences would be bizarre.

Now Deadline report that Kari Skogland is taking over from Patty as director on Cleopatra and Patty will be focusing on her other two projects - Rogue Squadron and Wonder Woman 3.

Patty will remain attached to Cleopatra in a producer role.

Interesting.

We theorised in our earlier commentary that Paramount's choice of Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot for Cleopatra might have been to cash in on their joint popularity from Wonder Woman.

But with Wonder Woman 1984 having been a bit of a dud, the pair now appear less shiny.

Having had another success with the almost tragically unoriginal but still very decent Red Notice, Gal Gadot has probably redeemed herself with audiences but Patty hasn't had that opportunity yet.

So on Cleopatra, maybe they decided that Gal stays and Patty goes.

For Star Wars fans this means that the next film to hit cinemas likely remains Rogue Squadron rather than Taika Waititi's untitled film.

[ Main Image: Cleopatra poster. Credit: Paramount via IMDb.com. ]

Refererences

Gardner, Chris (July 3, 2021). Patty Jenkins Thinks Streaming’s Day-and-Date Strategy Won’t Last. The Hollywood Reporter.

Kroll, Justin (December 6, 2021). Gal Gadot’s ‘Cleopatra’ Pic At Paramount Sets ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Kari Skogland To Direct As Patty Jenkins Moves Into Producing Role. Deadline.