Daisy Ridley’s “Star Wars” movie is still alive. Lucasfilm has hired George Nolfi (“The Borne Ultimatum”) to write the script for the long-gestating follow-up to 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” which is still set to be the feature directorial debut for Oscar-winning documentarian Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

By the time Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy officially announced the project and Ridley’s involvement at Star Wars Celebration in April 2023, the film — which currently has the working title of “Star Wars: New Jedi Order” — had already lost its initial screenwriting team of Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson (“The Strain”). Their replacement, Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”), worked on the film for over a year before departing in the fall of 2024. While the project’s underlying premise has remained the same — Ridley’s character, Rey, oversees a new class of Jedi knights — Knight’s departure coincided with the removal of a “Star Wars...