The immediate future of Star Wars is looking very bright, as evidenced by the days of breathless coverage stemming from Star Wars Celebration. Looking beyond this year, however, there are question marks. After The Rise of Skywalker there won't be any movies on the big screen for an undetermined amount of time, followed by new film series led by The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. That much has been known for a while, but what we didn't know is that they will all be working together as part of an overall long-term plan.
Speaking with EW, Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy talks about the future of Star Wars after the end of the Skywalker Saga, revealing they're looking well beyond just the next series of movies...
“We’re not just looking at what the next three movies might be, or talking about this in terms of a trilogy. We’re looking at: What is the next decade of storytelling?”
In charge of mapping out that decade-long strategy will be Johnson, who has his own trilogy in the works, along with Benioff and Weiss who were hired to do their own separate project. As far as we can tell, both will be set in different times and focus on brand new characters unrelated to anything in the Skywalker Saga...
“As they finish Game of Thrones, they’re going to segue into Star Wars. They’re working very closely with Rian.”
It's unclear where these stories will fall in the Star Wars timeline. There are still plenty of stories set in the Skywalker period, and Kennedy suggests a major shift away from that is what they are considering...
“We’re looking at whether we can move massively in one direction of the other. It’s still Star Wars, and holding on to the DNA of what George Lucas created is still very important to us. I think this is a huge opportunity to step into the galaxy in a little bit different part of the timeline.”
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens December 20th.
