If you though the upcoming arrival of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the half way point and signal for the end of our current love affair with the franchise, you might want to think again, because Lucasfilm has just announced a new Rian Johnson trilogy. He’ll be in charge of creating a whole new storyline, separate from the Skywalker-focused episodes, so the pressure is on for the relative newcomer to the film industry.
The writer and director of The Last Jedi has clearly impressed the bosses if he’s been given free reign on a whole new trilogy, so fans could look at the news as a good sign for Episode VIII, which will be out in December 2017. He’s also down to direct and write the first film in the new trilogy, and we’ll be surprised if he doesn’t go in to be either a co-producer or executive producer on the rest of them too.
It’s been an impressive rise to Star Wars prominence for Johnson, whose biggest film prior to The Last Jedi was Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis sci-fi flick, Looper. His TV credits aren’t extensive either, with three Breaking Bad episodes being the most significant, but he’s clearly got the vote of confidence from Disney and Lucasfilm.
He’ll also have producer Ram Bergman along for the galactic ride, who he’s worked with on a number of occasions over the years. Ram is the co-producer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi with Kathleen Kennedy, so it looks like Lucasfilm has picked it’s starting line-up for its what comes after squad.
There’s no release date as of yet for the opening film in the trilogy, but with Episode 9 scheduled for December 2019, you probably shouldn’t bank on anything before the 20s. There’s also Solo to arrive next year, the third Star Wars Story film in 2020 and Rian Johnson has still got to craft the new trilogy as a concept, so we’re expecting it to be out in 2021 at the earliest.
Obviously, details on the storyline for the three films is non-existent at the moment, and we’ll probably have to wait a fair while to find out anything significant. However, what we do know is that it will be set within the Star Wars universe, but away from the Skywalker saga.
According The details released by Lucasfilm, Johnson will be introducing a whole new set of new characters, so there’s bound to be a huge effort in the run up to production to find the right cast. It’ll also take place in a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never explored before, so there should be plenty of surprises for force fans to look forward to.
