In a major article for Vanity Fair, the creatives at Lucasfilm have outlined their plans moving forwards for the Star Wars franchise. The franchise has had mixed fortune recently, scoring a major international hit with TV series The Mandalorian but also two box-office disappointments with Solo (2018) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), and TV series The Book of Boba Fett which had a mixed reception.
During the article, Lucasfilm confirm the release schedule for their upcoming TV shows, with Obi-Wan Kenobi launching on 27 May and Rogue One prequel show Andorhitting screens a few weeks later, before the end of summer. The Mandalorian Season 3 will arrive late this year or early next, with Ahsoka being a confirmed 2023 release. The Acolyte, a show set during the "High Republic" era about 100 years before The Phantom Menace, is likely to appear in 2023 or 2024.
Lucasfilm are also developing a new project, which so far only has the code name "Grammar Rodeo" (a Simpsons reference). The show sounds like Star Wars: Stranger Things, with a group of four children who get swept up in events following the fall of the Empire. The show is reported to have a "Amblin coming-of-age adventure" vibe from the 1980s. Director Jon Watts, who helmed the recent Spider-ManHomecoming trilogy, is in charge alongside writer Chris Ford.
In terms of feature films, it appears that the new focus is on Taika Waititi's Star Wars movie, which is in pre-production and will be Waititi's next project once Thor: Love & Thunder launches and he gets his commitments to that out of the way. That could potentially be a 2024 release. Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron movie was delayed a while back due to commitments to Wonder Woman 3 and Cleopatra, but Jenkins cleared Cleopatra by transferring it to another director. Rogue Squadron will be Jenkins' next film once the third Wonder Woman movie is done, possibly for 2025.
Marvel Cinematic Universe head honcho Kevin Feige agreed to brainstorm and produce a Star Wars movie a while back, but he's so busy with the MCU that that project has been back-burnered. Likewise on hold is Rian Johnson's Star Wars trilogy. Johnson has committed to his Knives Out franchise and a Netflix deal, which puts a Star Wars return a long way off. Left unspoken is the mixed critical reception to Johnson's film The Last Jedi, which may have discouraged his return to the franchise altogether.
The Knights of the Old Republic movie, rumoured heavily a couple of years ago, and the rumoured Lando Calrissian TV show, are also left completely unmentioned.
The article addresses potential issues with the Star Wars franchise moving forwards: most of the projects reiterate on eras and things we have seen before. Only The Acolyte seems to be set in a new time period distinct from the prior settings, and even that is apparently going to eventually be setting up The Phantom Menace (I suspect a Darth Plagueis appearance). The article also suggests that the failure of Solo has been blamed on recasting Han Solo rather than its release date or franchise fatigue. This has driven the decision to use CGI to resurrect classic characters rather than recasting, which I think is the wrong conclusion to draw from that. The "deepfake" technology is getting better all the time, but it's still not at the point where classic characters can be restored to the screen convincingly. Even if it could, it feels like that's feeding into the desire to keep Star Wars permanently stuck revisiting the same time periods, characters and concepts.
The mixed reception to Star Wars projects which have tried to go in new directions seems to have resulted in a lot of conservatism in these new projects, which is a shame. The problem with the sequel trilogy wasn't that it was trying to go in new directions, but that it starting off not doing that (with the highly retro and fan-servicing The Force Awakens), then did that only semi-successfully (in The Last Jedi, half of the best Star Wars movie bolted onto half of the most pointless) and then reversed course again and made a complete pig's ear out of the situation (in The Rise of Skywalker). A Star Wars project which did go in genuinely new directions with a coherent plan in place from the start and was genuinely well-written I think would have every chance of success.
Forthcoming Star Wars Projects
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Disney+ streaming series, 27 May 2022
Andor: Disney+ streaming series, late summer 2022
The Mandalorian Season 3: Disney+ streaming series, late 2022/early 2023
Rumours are circulating about the next few Star Wars movies, suggesting they will take place in a new historical era known as the "High Republic," set some 400 years before the events of the other movies.
The Star Wars franchise has so far spanned three main eras: the Old Republic/prequel trilogy era, which includes the Clone Wars; the Galactic Civil War/original trilogy era, which includes the war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance; and the First Order/sequel trilogy era, which includes the struggle between the Resistance and the First Order. These three eras are all pretty close in time, spanning only sixty-six years between the events of The Phantom Menace and The Rise of Skywalker.
The now-retired Expanded Universe featured other eras of Star Wars history, most notably the "Reformation Era" set about 1,000 years before the films and focusing on the reorganisation of the Republic into its later form and the threat posed by Darth Bane.
Far better-known and more popular is the "Old Republic Era," which is set about 4,000 years before the films and focuses on a series of ancient struggles between the Jedi and the Sith which devastated vast areas of the galaxy. This era was the setting for a very popular comics series and also the best-selling Knights of the Old Republic series of video games. The current Star Wars online RPG, The Old Republic, is still set in this era and its future story direction is being directed by the Lucasfilm Story Group, semi-canonising it under the new Disney regime.
Last year it was reported that Altered Carbon showrunner Laeta Kalogridis was developing a film script based on the original Knights of the Old Republic and that Disney were planning to set all of their currently in-development films post-Rise of Skywalker in this era, including a trilogy spearheaded by Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and a multi-film project led by former Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Benioff and Weiss subsequently walked from the project and the under-performance of recent Star Wars media has left the future of the franchise in the cinema in some doubt.
According to the report, Disney are now most likely to press on with their "Project Luminous" idea, except it won't be set 4,000 years earlier but four hundred years before the existing movies. Reportedly, this project will incorporate the next few feature films, video games, novels and comic books, and will focus on a group of Jedi exploring the Unknown Regions of the galaxy. Exploration and confronting new threats will apparently be a focus, along with a possible confrontation with a group of Sith hiding in remote corners of the galaxy.
The wisdom of abandoning all of the familiar parts of the Star Wars setting, as well as the popular Knights of the Old Republic sub-setting, for a completely fresh time period is questionable. The quality of the project will depend on the creative talent involved, which has yet to be confirmed.
Although it sounds like most or all Star Wars projects in the medium term will focus on this new setting, Lucasfilm will continue to explore more familiar settings through further seasons of The Mandalorian, as well as their up-coming mini-series focusing on Obi-Wan and a prequel spin-off from Rogue One.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has confirmed that there will be a "long hiatus" for the Star Wars movie series after the release of Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker this December.
Exactly how long the hiatus will be is unclear, although Kennedy suggested it may be a "couple of years," which isn't a massive gap but it certainly seems to signify Lucasfilm retreating from their plan of producing between one and three Star Wars movies a year, echoing sister studio Marvel's approach to their superhero series.
It is known that Lucasfilm were actively considering multiple films to follow The Rise of Skywalker, including a side-trilogy to be directed by Rian Johnson (The Last Jedi), a side-series to be directed by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (Game of Thrones), possibly one or more films focusing on individual characters from the Episode VII-IX trilogy, and further "Star Wars Stories" focusing on characters like Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, to be directed by James Mangold (Logan) and Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliott) respectively.
However, the surprising commercial failure of Solo: A Star Wars Movie (2018) has put development of all future movies on hold. How quickly the series resumes may depend on the box office performance of The Rise of Skywalker in December.
The official status of the previously announced movies is that Benioff and Weiss's series remains in active development, and they will move over to it full-time once Game of Thrones' final season finishes airing in May and they have completed all outstanding work with HBO (including any material they still have to shoot for the DVD and Blu-Ray box sets for the final season). Disney and Lucasfilm will then consult with them on the ideas they are developing before greenlighting anything, which puts any film from that quarter likely 3-5 years away.
The official status of Rian Johnson's trilogy is that it is still being developed, but after the all-encompassing task of making The Last Jedi he chose to take a break to work on a stand-alone thriller, Knives Out. Shooting on that has been completed and the film is due out later in 2019, after which Johnson will start developing the new trilogy in full. Again, that seems to put any new film from that quarter also out by several years.
The Boba Fett movie is officially toast. The failure of Solo seems to have left Lucasfilm dubious that a stand-alone movie about a far more low-profile character had any merit to it. Rumours suggest that some of the ideas from the film may have been translated to the new Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian, although the title character is not Boba Fett but a new character to be played by Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Narcos).
The status of the Obi-Wan movie is murkier. Fans who were very derisory about both Solo and the Boba Fett project seem to be much keener to see Ewan McGregor return as Obi-Wan in a film set between Revenge of the Sith and the original Star Wars movie. However, Stephen Daldry is no longer involved. The latest rumours are that Lucasfilm are still strongly considering this project, but potentially as a mini-series for Disney+ instead.
This rumour also strengthens the idea that Lucasfilm are considering a strong pivot to television for the future of Star Wars, at least in the short term. Animated series Star Wars: Resistance is already airing on Disney XD and The Mandalorian, to debut on Disney+ in November, will be the franchise's first-ever live-action TV show. A further season of The Clone Wars, the CG animated show that was cancelled back in 2014, is also in production for Disney+. A mini-series focusing on the character of Cassian Andor and the events leading up to Rogue One is also in development.
There will be more Star Wars movies in the future, and probably not as far off as some may think, but it remains to be seen what form they will take.
The Resistance has destroyed Starkiller Base but has failed to prevent the First Order from toppling the Republic. The new rebels are now on the run. On a distant planet Rey has found Luke Skywalker and asks for his help for the Resistance and for herself, as her Force powers are growing exponentially. But Luke has been broken and demoralised by the betrayal of Kylo Ren. Rey and the Resistance both face their lowest ebb as Supreme Leader Snoke himself arrives to oversee the final battle...but there is still the possibility of hope.
Back in 2015, The Force Awakens had the unenviable task of resurrecting a Star Wars franchise that had been let down by three disappointing prequel movies. It succeeded mainly by creating and developing an intriguing new cast of characters, all played by great young actors, whilst furthering the themes of the Force, heroism and self-sacrifice and adding an interesting major new theme of redemption in the shape of Adam Driver's new villain, Kylo Ren. Unfortunately, the film was also highly derivative of what came before, with a new Death Star and a few too many nods at the previous Star Wars movies that were less homages and more re-stagings. Still, it was fun, pacy and energetic and this overwhelmed many of the movie's weaker moments.
The Last Jedi is, fortunately, not as derivative of The Empire Strikes Back as its forebear was of A New Hope, although there are some similarities. It has a similar underlying structure - our Force novice hero (or heroine, in this case) is off training up as a Jedi whilst our other characters are on the run from the Empire - but these plots go in very unexpected directions. A battered, post-traumatic Luke is reluctant to train Rey following his own failure with Kylo Ren and the movie delves deep into this relationship and backstory, as well as expanding on Ren's fascination with Rey and Snoke's desire to train Ren as his heir apparent. This dynamic is compelling, fantastically well-acted (Driver and Daisy Ridley holding their own against a never-better Mark Hamill and another astonishing digital performance from Andy Serkis) and takes several turns which are surprising, refreshing and fascinating. We're light-years from the simplistic "corruption of Anakin" story from the prequels here, and we get several outstanding lightsabre battles along the way.
This is handy, because of the rest of the film is a little bit more variable in quality. It's good to see Finn (John Boyega) back on his feet and he's soon off on a solo adventure with Resistance mechanic Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), who is a breath of fresh air in the franchise. Their story is fun and - rather unexpectedly - taps into weighty issues like capitalist exploitation of disenfranchised workers (although we still don't get any discussion of why enslaving sentient droids is okay). Benicio Del Toro shows up and does vaguely Benicio Del Toro things before abruptly disappearing from the narrative. It's all okay and vaguely amusing but at the end of the movie you realise that Finn's entire story could have been jettisoned from the film without losing anything (other than a couple of dozen minutes from the film's overlong running time) other than a few discussions about the value of friendship and family which, whilst nice, aren't exactly revelatory.
The biggest problem lies in the movie's core chase sequence, where the First Order fleet relentlessly hunts down the last remaining Resistance warship. This creates a rather major plot hole where the storyline could have been resolved at any moment by a couple of the First Order ships making a micro-hyperspace jump ahead of the Resistance and cutting them off, which they don't do because...well, it's never explained. Later on the Resistance use a hyperspace manoeuvre in battle which is, as established in the previous movies, physically impossible (and, if it was possible to do it by tweaking a ship's drives somehow, it would have been used frequently before). Given that this storyline forms a large chunk of the movie's running time and is where Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaacs) and General Leia (Carrie Fisher), along with Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), are hanging out, along with a welcome expanded role for Lt. Connix (Billie Lourd, Fisher's daughter), it's quite a big issue for established Star Wars fans who know the background and canon quite well. Casual viewers likely won't care.
The film brings all the characters back together for a surprisingly twisty climax, complete with at least two stand-out musical homages to the original trilogy and some moments of real humour. Much has been made of the "surprises" in the movie and there are a few things that definitely don't go the way people will be expecting. But ultimately this is Star Wars and there are limits to Lucasfilm's conceptual boldness, even if they do press up against them from time to time.
The Last Jedi (***½) is, once again, energetic, well-directed and has some great dialogue and fantastic performances. Also once again, the central storyline is more than a little stupid and there are plot holes big enough to pilot Supreme Leader Snoke's 60km-wide Super Duper Star Destroyer through, which grate a little bit more this time around (since I think Rian Johnson is a better writer and director than Abrams, but he doesn't knock it out of the park here). The best Star Wars movie since Empire? No. The best once since Rogue One, and that's still entertaining enough for now. But Episode IX will really need to up its game. The film is on general release now.
If you like Star Wars, then you'll no doubt be pleased to know that everything is now Star Wars from now until the end of time. If you don't like Star Wars, prepare to spend the next decade or so emitting long-suffering sighs.
First up, Disney are really happy with how The Last Jedi turned out. How happy? They've given director Rian Johnson the helm of a full new Star Wars trilogy of movies. That's three new films to launch after Episode IX is released in 2019. The three new films will not be part of the numbered "Skywalker Saga" but will instead explore a "new corner of the Star Wars galaxy not previously touched on by the lore", which seems a bit vague.
Johnson is in control of the new trilogy and will executive produce and co-write all three movies. I'm guessing he will also direct at least the first one, but maybe all three (or possibly the first and third ones, as if Disney stick to their two-year turn-around times that may be too fast for him to direct all three).
This is in addition to the less-formalised plan to have additional movies that will continue to explore the story of Rey, Poe and Finn even after Episode IX is released. It's unclear if these hypothetical movies will constitute Episodes X-XII or will be more self-contained adventures for the characters.
Arguably even more intriguing is the news that Lucasfilm are finally bringing a live-action Star Wars TV series to the screen. This will be one of several shows - alongside a Monsters, Inc. ongoing series and a new, high-end Marvel live-action series - that will launch Disney's new streaming service in 2019. This service will compete directly with Amazon and Netflix, and to bolster it Disney are also moving every single show and movie that they control over to it (including all previous Star Wars movies and animated series, plus their enormous catalogue of animated films, Pixar movies and content from other channels they own, like ABC). They are also currently pursuing a deal to buy 20th Century Fox outright, that would give them a staggering amount of content to transfer to the new service.
Nothing is known at all about the time period, setting and concept for the TV series. It's unlikely that the bounty hunter-focused TV show set in Coruscant's underworld that George Lucas was developing in 2005-10 will be revisited.
This makes the current Star Wars schedule look something like this:
December 2017: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi May 2018: Star Wars: Solo December 2019: Star Wars Episode IX, new live-action TV series May 2020: Untitled Star Wars Anthology Film (possibly the Obi-Wan Kenobi movie) 2021?: New Star Wars Trilogy Movie #1
So, if you like Star Wars, your face probably currently looks like this:
If you hate it, your face currently looks like this:
Rian Johnson's first Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, lands in cinemas on 15 December.
Lucasfilm have confirmed that J.J. Abrams will be revisiting the Star Wars universe by directing and co-writing Episode IX following Colin Trevorrow's recent departure.
The news is not really surprising: Abrams has worked on all three of the new main-sequence films as a producer and was also available. It looked like Abrams was gunning for directing a fourth Star Trek reboot movie, but with Paramount still hesitant about pulling the trigger on the film following Star Trek Beyond's disappointing box office, he had a hole in his schedule. In addition, with Episode IX due to commence filming in the next couple of months, an experienced director with some existing involvement in the film's development and conception makes a lot of sense.
Some fans will no doubt be disappointed, though. Abrams did a reasonably good job on The Force Awakens, but the movie did have some problems (such as the resurfacing of Abrams' bizarre inability to understand how big space is) and many of its strengths were down to Lawrence Kasdan's writing. Kasdan is retiring from writing Star Wars after the upcoming Han Solo spin-off movie, so will not have a hand in this movie. Instead, Chris Terrio will co-write the movie with Abrams (based on a story developed by Rian Johnson). Terrio is best-known as the co-writer of, er, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice but, more hopefully, he also won an Oscar for writing Argo.
Lucasfilm are also understood to have explored the possibility of Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (due in cinemas in December), directing the movie. However, Johnson is still editing the movie and putting it through post-production for the next three months, whilst Episode IX needs to go into pre-production yesterday to hit its intended release date.
Star Wars: Episode IX is due for release in May 2019, although don't be surprised at all if this slips to December instead.
UPDATE: It's now been confirmed that Episode IX will debut in December 2019. This will give Abrams more time to get up to speed on the movie and will also resolve Disney's scheduling issue of launching two massive movies (Episode IX and Avengers: Infinity War Part II) within a couple of weeks of one another.
Lucasfilm have released the first trailer for Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.
The Last Jedi is the direct sequel to 2015's The Force Awakens and picks up where that movie left off. The Resistance has won a victory over the First Order by destroying its Starkiller weapon, but the First Order remains very much intact. Kylo Ren, badly wounded in lightsabre combat, is being healed and tutored by his mentor, the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke. Finn remains badly injured from the same battle.
The film's main narrative thrust, however, appears to centre on Rey and Luke Skywalker. Rey has located Luke on a remote planet and is learning the ways of the Force from him, but Luke appears disillusioned by the Jedi ways, declaring that it may be time for the organisation to disappear.
The Last Jedi will be released on 15 December this year.
Lucasfilm have confirmed that the next Star Wars movie will be called The Last Jedi.
Lucasfilm broke the news this morning. Director Rian Johnson has said that the film actually had that title on its very first script draft, delivered two years ago, and there hadn't been much discussion about it (whilst apparently both The Force Awakens and Rogue One had a bit more discussion to them).
The title sounds ominous, but it's been pointed out that "Jedi" is both singular and plural, so it can refer to Luke Skywalker or his presumed new apprentice Rey, or both.
The new film picks up at the precise moment The Force Awakens ends and will see Luke helping Rey gain control of the Force whilst Supreme Leader Snoke helps heal and (presumably) train his apprentice Kylo Ren, who was seriously wounded at the end of the previous movie. In the meantime, Leia continues to lead the Resistance in its battle against the First Order, presumably aided by Poe Dameron and his plucky X-wing pilots, as well as ex-stormtrooper Finn.
The film will feature the final appearance of Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa (unless material is held back for Episode IX), as she had completed filming for the movie before she passed away last month. Leia had been scheduled to play a larger role in Episode IX, but Lucasfilm and director Colin Trevorrow have already met to decide on how to proceed. It is understood that CGI of the type used to briefly resurrect Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One will not be employed.
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi will be released on 15 December this year. Episode IX is pencilled in for release two years later, with a "young Han Solo" prequel movie slated for release inbetween.
In four months Star Wars: Rogue One will hit cinema screens. It will be the biggest risk in the forty year history of the franchise. It'll be the first movie in the series which does not revolve around lightsabres, the Force or the Skywalker family. A Dirty Dozen in space, it will carefully explore whether mass audiences are willing to watch stories in that universe which are not related to the characters or premise of the original movies.
"That's a nice eclipse. But wait, this planet has no moon, how can we have an eclipse?"
"That's no moon..."
That said, it's not that much of a risk. The film will be partially set on the Death Star and characters like Mon Mothma and even Darth Vader will appear (if only, in the latter case, for what sounds like an effective cameo). And whilst cinema audiences may not be used to Star Wars without the Skywalkers, it's something many millions of more dedicated fans have experienced for decades in mediums like the comic books, novels, video games and animated TV series like The Clone Wars and Rebels. Even if, somehow, Rogue One does badly, it'll only be another year before Episode VIII (still, curiously, not titled by Lucasfilm) hits cinema screens to continue the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren, Finn, Rey and everyone else from The Force Awakens.
We know that Disney wants to release a Star Wars movie every year from now until the end of time (probably) and this will mean them telling completely original stories in the setting. It's actually a clever move, because after Rogue One the other planned spin-off movies are actually dove-tailing into the main saga by exploring the backstories of major characters, which gives them time to see if Rogue One is a success before committing to more original movies. So here's a look at what we know about the upcoming movies and throw some ideas about for films beyond that:
In Production
Star Wars: Rogue One Directed by Gareth Edwards Release Date: 16 December 2016 Status: Late post-production
You should have already seen the trailers for this. Rogue One is a prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, taking place just weeks before the events of A New Hope. The film chronicles the completion of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance getting wind of the Empire's new superweapon and a crack team of morally dubious commandos being dispatched to steal vital technical data on the weapon. It's this data that eventually gets into the hands of Princess Leia and R2-D2, kicking off the entire saga.
This film is unusual in that it focuses on non-Force-using characters, with Edwards describing it as a war film more in the vein of The Dirty Dozen than the fantasy adventure fun of the previous movies. The film will apparently have a slightly "grittier" tone than the main films and will probably not even have a scene-setting opening crawl. It will also be the first Star Wars movie to not be scored by John Williams. The film is likely to be a big success but whether it will match the heights of The Force Awakens remains to be seen: the marketing for this film has been extremely restrained so far, compared to where we were a year ago for Episode VII.
Star Wars: Episode VIII Directed by Rian Johnson Release Date: December 2017 Status: Early post-production
This film picks up after the end of The Force Awakens, with Rey trying to convince Luke Skywalker to train her in the ways of the Force, Finn recovering from the injuries he sustained in the battle with Kylo Ren and Ren, himself badly wounded, being taken to Supreme Leader Snoke to be healed and learn more of the Dark Side of the Force. The Resistance is reeling from the destruction of Hosnian Prime, but the First Order has also been dealt a serious blow with the destruction of Starkiller Base, likely leading to renewed fighting between the two sides.
The second of the new Star Wars episodes is directed by Rian Johnson, who is extremely well-respected for his original SF movies Brick and Looper, not to mention his excellent work on Breaking Bad. This movie will be huge - potentially bigger even than The Force Awakens - and hopefully a bit more original on the story side of things.
Star Wars: Han Solo Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller Release Date: 15 May 2018 (likely, in my opinion, to change) Status: Pre-production and casting
This film will explore the backstory of everyone's favourite smuggler, Han Solo. The movie is apparently set ten years before the events of A New Hope and will explain how Solo acquires the Millennium Falcon, with a young Lando Calrissian also expected to appear. You'd also expect Chewbacca to show up, but that has not yet been confirmed.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have a huge amount of both geek cred and studio support, having taken The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street (plus its sequel) to box office success and critical acclaim. They recently announced that Alden Ehrenreich will be starring as the young Han Solo, and the Internet approved mightily of the (unconfirmed) rumour that Community actor Donald Glover will be playing Lando. Lawrence Kasdan, co-writer of The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, is also co-writing this movie with his son. This seems like a pretty strong project, with Han Solo's roguish adventures being the perfect setting for a Star Wars movie. Interestingly, this may also be a relatively small-scale Star Wars movie without the planet-destroying superweapons and galaxy-spanning wars of the other movies. Some rumours have suggested it may also take cues from Ocean's Eleven, which would be interesting although possibly self-defeating (why make a Han Solo, er, solo movie if you then immediately add lots of other main characters?).
Even the suggestion that Disney might spin this out into a trilogy of films ending shortly before the events of Episode IV isn't necessarily a bad thing, providing the writers, directors and, most impotantly, the actor all deliver on the tremendous promise.
Star Wars: Episode IX Directed by Colin Trevorrow Release Date: December 2019 Status: Pre-production and writing
Given that Episode VIII is still sixteen months away, it's probably premature to speculate too much about Episode IX. But this film will likely resolve the fates of Kylo Ren, Finn and Rey and the First Order and finally bring peace to the galaxy, at least until such time that Disney's finances require the inevitable Episode X-XII trilogy be made.
Colin Trevorrow was a bit of an eye-opening choice for this film, with only two previous movies on his resume and, unlike Rian Johnson, neither were critical successes. But when one of those movies was the franchise-rejeuvenating, money-making machine Jurassic World, that doesn't really matter. What is more hopeful is that Rian Johnson is hanging around to co-write the script.
In Development
These ideas have all been thrown around by Lucasfilm in interviews before, so we can assume that they have at least been discussed.
Star Wars: Boba Fett
A film revolving around everyone's favourite space mercenary Boba Fett has been mooted several times before. Fett was the break-out star of the original trilogy, a background character with a bare handful of words who was defeated by Han Solo by accident and eaten by a giant hole in the desert, but somehow retained his cool aura. The Clone Wars animated series actually did a reasonable job of filling in his character and backstory.
I'm a bit torn on this one. On the one hand, Boba Fett worked in the original trilogy because he was hardly in it. He showed up, showed some sass to Darth Vader and then apparently died. Both the Expanded Universe and the new canon have ruled that he survived his fall into the Sarlaac, but the Expanded Universe novels did arguably then over-use him, particularly in trying to make him a morally-justified Mandalorian warlord. Part of me thinks Fett should remain firmly off-screen.
But the approach suggested by Lawrence Kasdan is also interesting. Kasdan, who is known not to be a fan of the prequel trilogy, apparently penned a treatment in which the Boba Fett from Attack of the Clones is attacked and killed by a Clint Eastwood-esque "man with no name" who then steals Fett's identity before the events of the original trilogy. It's a nice idea, but I get the impression that Lucasfilm vetoed it, possibly feeling it was a bit of an insult to George Lucas (who clearly intended them to the be the same character, even redubbing all of Fett's lines in the original trilogy with the Attack of the Clones actor's voice). Kasdan later announced that Han Solo will be his last movie, so the Boba Fett project - which appears now to have been moved to the backburner - will have to find another writer.
Star Wars: Yoda
A Yoda-centric Star Wars story has actually been on the cards since George Lucas made Return of the Jedi. When the Expanded Universe took off a few years after that movie came out, Lucas forbade any of the novel authors, RPG designers or TV scriptwriters from giving any information at all on Yoda or his species. The closest anyone got was when Knights of the Old Republic II featured an alien of the same race. So clearly Lucas wanted to carefully protect Yoda's backstory for another time.
That said, a Yoda-centric movie might be a hard sell. The prequel trilogy didn't really endear audiences more to the character (who was rather more humourless and less relatable than his appearances in the original trilogy) and, like Fett, Yoda works more in small doses. Maybe a film that explores his 900-year backstory without necessarily featuring him in every scene might work. I suspect this film is also now on the backburner as Lucasfilm debate how to handle it.
Star Wars: Obi-Wan
This project doesn't appear to have been on Lucasfilm's radar, but came up as a possibility after Ewan McGregor enthusiastically endorsed the idea in interviews. McGregor had been lukewarm on his experiences filming the prequel trilogy (noting his numerous emotional scenes where he had only a tennis ball to react to), but apparently is keen to revisit the character with a better writer and more meaty material to handle. This film would presumably be set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and see Obi-Wan called away from Tatooine to undertake a new adventure. It is also possible that this film could dovetail into either (or both) the proposed Boba Fett and Yoda projects. There's also the fact that in A New Hope Luke notes he has met Obi-Wan before, so this movie could also explore that first meeting.
Mostly, I think a lot of people feel bad that an actor of McGregor's calibre was let down by poor material in the prequel trilogy and want to give him another shot with the character.
Possible Ideas
These are ideas that fans and writers have thrown around, with variable amounts of plausibility.
Star Wars: Rogue Two
Probably not revolving the character from The Empire Strikes Back (although at this rate, in another fifty movies' time that may actually be a viable idea). More plausibly, this could be another adventure with the Rogue One crew, or whoever survives that movie, perhaps going after the Death Star II plans (presumably helped by many Bothans) or getting involved in more between-movie shenanigans.
More likely would be a film that tries to do the same kind of thing as Rogue One: a completely new adventure with a whole new cast, just set in the wider Star Wars universe.
Star Wars: Mace Windu
Like Ewan McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson has expressed interest in reprising his prequel trilogy character of Mace Windu, famed for his purple lightsabre. Unlike the proposed Obi-Wan movie, this would be rather more difficult since Mace Windu dies in Revenge of the Sith when his arm is chopped off by Anakin Skywalker and he is then blasted out of the window of the Chancellor's office with Force lightning.
OR DOES HE?
No, he does, but Jackson has heroically argued that Windu could have survived his multi-mile plummet onto the streets of Coruscant and gone into hiding, emerging many years later to wreak havoc on the Empire, presumably before dying for real (to explain why he's not in the original trilogy). It's a nice idea, but given the already-ridiculous return of Boba Fett from the dead I think this is probably an idea best avoided.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
BioWare's classic 2003 computer RPG is widely-cited as the finest piece of Star Wars material ever created outside the movies, with its 2004 sequel from Obsidian Entertainment (which explores a much more morally murky idea of the Star Wars universe) not far behind it. These two games have spawned enormous numbers of popular spin-offs, including the current online multiplayer game The Old Republic. A film version of the story, or exploring the same time period (4,000 years before the original trilogy) when the Jedi and Sith are both numerous and engaged in galaxy-spanning conflicts, could be quite interesting.
Star Wars: Thrawn
Grand Admiral Thrawn is the most popular Star Wars character not to appear in the films, instead having been the star villain of Timothy Zahn's early 1990s novels which launched the Expanded Universe. The EU is gone but Thrawn has been carried forwards into the new continuity, with him set to appear as a villain in Season 3 of the Rebels animated series and Zahn writing a new novel about him.
A movie featuring Thrawn as a villain would be very popular. Hugo Weaving was previously a fan favourite to play him, but Benedict Cumberbatch now seems to be the actor of choice to take on the role. Such a film would also, if set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, explore a time period which is still a bit murky and may allow other EU characters like Mara Jade to appear in the new canon.
This assumes that Thrawn won't just be killed off in Rebels, but that would appear to be a waste of an excellent villain.
Star Wars: The Huttfather
Jabba the Hutt stars in a Godfather-riffing trilogy exploring his backstory, rising from a poor young Hutt in the swamps of Nal Hutta to an immigrant to the Vertical City of Nar Shaddaa to his rise to a powerful crimelord of the Outer Rim, based on Tatooine. Robert De Niro will play the young Hutt in lengthy flashbacks.
Okay, I made that up. But at this rate this will be a viable project in about ten years or so.
Star Wars: Episode VIIIhas been delayed by seven months. It will now be released on 15 December 2017, falling back from its original May release date.
There are several likely reasons for this. The first is that, after the success of The Force Awakens, Disney appears to have requested rewrites to more firmly centre the movie on the established new characters of Poe Dameron, Finn and Rey. Apparently Rey was originally going to take a slightly smaller role, presumably as she'd be spending most of the time offscreen carrying Mark Hamill around like a backpack for training purposes, and several new characters were going to pick up the slack. It now sounds like the new characters will, whilst still be present, be more in supporting roles to the new trilogy's new central trio.
The second, and frankly more likely reason, is that Disney assessed that the May 2017 release date was going to be more crowded with blockbusters and Episode VIII would be more likely to repeat The Force Awakens's massive success (now at $1.9 billion and still climbing at an impressive rate) if it fell back to December. However, that will put Episode VIII (the sequel to what will almost certainly be the second-biggest movie of all time) head-to-head with James Cameron's Avatar II (the sequel to what will almost certainly still be the biggest movie of all time) in a real cinematic clash of the titans.
There's also the fact that the release schedule was a tad ambitious, with principal photography on VIII not due to start until the spring of this year and with extensive effects work likely required (although some early shooting has already been completed on the Irish islands used for Luke's planet in VII), director/writer Rian Johnson could do with the extra time.
In the meantime, we still have Star Wars: Rogue One to look forwards to, in cinemas in December this year. Also check out Joe Sill's Star Wars fan film above. Kara is all the classic beats of Star Wars distilled into seven minutes of accomplished work.
Filming of Star Wars: Episode VIIIis due to start on Monday. Director Rian Johnson and a crew will film for most of this week on the small island of Skellig Michael, off the south-western coast of Ireland.
The same island was used for filming of Episode VII: The Force Awakens, suggesting that the same location is being revisited.
It looks like this will be some early shooting down for scheduling reasons, with the bulk of filming not expected to start in earnest until after Christmas. Still, Episode VIII is now officially in production, alongside Rogue One which started filming a few weeks ago. The Force Awakens is in the final stages of post-production ahead of its December premiere.
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.
Disney and Lucasfilm have unveiled the teaser trailer for The Force Awakens, the seventh film in the Star Wars saga, due in cinemas in December 2015.
It would appear we're back on Tatooine - the busiest backwater nowhere in the galaxy, it appears - and there's also some stuff going on with the Millennium Falcon, TIE Fighters and X-Wings, which is sure to please everyone. There's a cute new robot for the little kids, but he looks more tolerable than Jar-Jar at this stage. There's also a villain with a lightsabre which has little lightsabre hilts, which is kind of adorable. It's hard to match the Darth Maul dual-lightsabre revelation from The Phantom Menace trailer, but it might be there's not much more to do with them. It's also unclear who the narrator is: it sounds a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch.
In other news, pre-production is close to starting up on the first Star Wars stand-alone film. Directed by Gareth Edwards, this film is due for release in December 2016 with production set to get underway next year (before Episode VII is even released). According to one source, this first movie will be a heist film and will see a bunch of bounty hunters being employed by the Rebel Alliance to undertake a daring raid on the Empire. The rumour is that amongst the information they seize are the plans to the first Death Star, and this will dovetail the film into the start of Episode IV. The rumours are also that Max von Sydow's character from Episode VII will appear as a young man in this film.
Disney/Lucasfilm's masterplan is for five Star Wars movies to be released annually from 2015 to 2019, consisting of Episodes VII-IX (to be directed by Abrams, Rian Johnson and as-yet undisclosed director) and at least two spin-off films, one focusing on bounty hunters and the other possibly on Yoda's backstory.
Star Wars: Episode VII is currently shooting in the UK with J.J. Abrams in the directing seat, but Disney and Lucasfilm are already preparing the next three movies in the franchise.
Gareth Edwards, the director of indie movie Monsters and the recent Godzilla reboot, will be helming the first stand-alone, spin-off film. This is widely rumoured to be a film about the perpetual fan-favourite bounty-hunter Boba Fett. It's already slated for release in December 2016, a year after Episode VII. Josh Trank, the director of the low-budget 2012 SF movie Chronicle and the forthcoming Fantastic Four reboot, has also been slated to direct a stand-alone, possibly for release in 2018.
Not quite locked yet, but almost, is Rian Johnson, the director of the well-received 2012 time travel thriller Looper. Johnson is rumoured to be writing and directing Episode VIII, already slated for release in late 2017, and is also writing a story treatment for Episode IX.
Disney and Lucasfilm plan to release a Star Wars movie every year from 2015 to at least 2019, with Episodes VII-IX alternating years with stand-alone films.
