Boba Fett STAR WARS movie apparently back in development

With Solo in cinemas and work on Episode IX underway, Disney are turning their attention to how the next generation of Star Wars movies are going to shake up. They are planning two new trilogies of films as well as more stand-alone movies to be released under the "Star Wars Story" moniker.

At the moment Disney have no officially-announced movies slated for release beyond J.J. Abrams' Episode IX, which is expected to hit cinemas in December 2019. The question of what Star Wars stand-alone movie will arrive in 2020 has been occupying fans of late, with strong rumours circulating that Ewan McGregor will be reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi for a film set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliott, The Hours) is in talks to direct the film, with shooting reportedly already pencilled in for 2019 but still not officially announced or confirmed.

Today it's been strongly reported that a Boba Fett movie is back on the production slate. The film was one of several ideas announced alongside Rogue One and Solo, but it was shelved after Disney fell out with prospective director Josh Trank, with Solo moved up the production schedule to replace it. The report today is that the project is back on with Logan director James Mangold in talks to direct.

It's unclear if the once-mooted idea that an unknown character would kill the Fett from the prequel trilogy and steal his identity (thus restoring ambiguity to a character whose backstory should never have been explored in the first place) is still in serious contention either.

It's also unclear at the moment if the Fett movie is meant for the 2020 or 2021 slot; Mangold was supposed to be directing a movie about the Ferrari company next, so assuming that's still the case, this would suggest that the Obi-Wan movie will be out in 2020 with a Fett film to follow in 2021. However, this production timetable is complicated by the fact that Rian Johnson is developing a Star Wars movie trilogy (albeit one with a brand-new story, not centred around the "saga") and Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will be rolling directly into their own multi-film Star Wars project after Thrones wraps next year.

This crowded production space - which isn't even taking into consideration the heavily-rumoured Solo sequel or the Yoda movie (although that seems to be more permanently off the table, given George Lucas apparently absolutely hated the idea) - suggests that Disney want to take Star Wars in the same direction as the Marvel movies, with 2 or even 3 movies a year released. Whether this is viable given the apparently lack of confidence in the Star Wars camp over allowing their movies to be as diverse in tone as the Marvel roster is open to question.

At the moment a potential Star Wars release schedule going forward could look like this:

December 2019: Star Wars: Episode IX
2020: Obi-Wan: A Star Wars Story
Early 2021: Fett: A Star Wars Story
Late 2021: Rian Johnson Trilogy #1
Early 2022: Solo sequel
Late 2022: Benioff & Weiss Trilogy #1

There's also the Star Wars live-action TV show set a few years after Return of the Jedi, helmed by Jon Favreau, which should arrive in late 2019 or early 2020, and Star Wars: Resistance, a new animated show focusing on Captain Phasma and Poe Dameron which will arrive later this year.

Three new STAR WARS films to be released within 18 months of each other

The next three Star Wars movies will be released within 18 months of one another.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is still on track for release on 18 December 2015. The first Star Wars live-action spin-off movie now has a title, Star Wars: Rogue One, and a release date of 16 December 2016. This will then be followed by Star Wars Episode VIII, which now has a release date of 26 May 2017, forty years and one day after the release of the original Star Wars movie back in 1977.

Rogue One will star Felicity Jones (Oscar-nominated for her role in The Theory of Everything) in a so-far unnamed role. It will be written by Chris Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy, Antz, The Golden Compass) and directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla). Rumours previously suggested this film may be set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and may involve a heist, leading to the discovery of the Death Star. However, the title of the film may also refer to the commander of Rogue Squadron, an elite formation of X-wing fighter pilots founded by Luke Skywalker but later taken over by Wedge Antilles.

Star Wars Episode VIII will follow on from the events of Episode VII but J.J. Abrams is not returning as director. Instead, Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick, The Brothers Bloom and several episodes of Breaking Bad) will direct and write.

Episode IX is tentatively pencilled in for 2019, with possibly two further stand-alone films to be released in 2018 and 2020. Whether the moving up of Episode VIII by six months will also bring forward the rest is unclear. What is clear is that if you're a Star Wars fan, things are going to get very interesting over the next few years.