Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic film in the works

The role-playing game, first released in 2003, is set almost 4000 years before the formation of the Galactic Empire

A film based on the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is currently in the works at Lucasfilm.

Buzzfeed News reports that Laeta Kalogridis – the creator of Netflix’s Altered Carbon, an executive producer on Avatar, and the writer of 2010’s Shutter Island – is currently working on a screenplay, with sources stating there’s potential for a trilogy.

Knights of the Old Republic is a role-playing game, first released in 2003, set almost 4000 years before the formation of the Galactic Empire, at a time when the Sith Lord Darth Malak has launched an attack against the Republic. The player takes on the role of a Jedi sent to defeat Malak.

A sequel was released in 2004, with an online multiplayer game arriving in 2011.

Rumours that a project based on this period of the Star Wars timeline have been rife. At this year’s Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy told MTV News that, when it comes to the Old Republic: ”Yes, we are developing something to look at... Right now, I have no idea where things might fall.”

Kalogridis is the first credited female screenwriter to work on the Star Wars films since 1980’s The Empire Strike Back, when Leigh Brackett received a co-writing credit with Lawrence Kasdan.

The project is thought to be separate to the film currently being worked on by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss, which will be the next Star Wars film to be released.