Star Wars has dominated entertainment news of late, from official word that the movies will be hitting the forthcoming Disney+ streaming service to the multi-day Star Wars Celebration, which boasted, among other goodies, a teaser for December’s Episode IX, which we learned was subtitled The Rise of Skywalker. There’s also been major revelations about Galaxy’s Edge, the theme park wing opening at both Disneyland and Disney World.
So we might as well get some perhaps bad news out of the way while we’re at it: After the next film, you won’t be getting a Star Wars movie for a bit. The news was dropped on EW, courtesy of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.
“We’re going to take a hiatus for a couple of years,” Kennedy told the publication. “And we’re taking the time to really look at where this is going from the standpoint of a saga.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be any Star Wars content. Kennedy informed EW they would, for one thing, turn a lot of attention to Disney+ streaming shows, including the already-filming, Jon Favreau-spearheaded The Mandalorian and a series Diego Luna’s Rogue One rogue Cassian Andor. Meanwhile they’ll be taking the time to map out what kind of Star Wars cinema they’ll be gifting fans.
“We’re not just looking at what the next three movies might be, or talking about this in terms of a trilogy,” Kennedy added. “We’re looking at: What is the next decade of storytelling?”
Mind you, this doesn’t mean the new series of Star Wars movies hatched by Last Jedi auteur Rian Johnson are cancelled. Ditto the films from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. In fact, the two teams are working closely together, and will do so even more once Benioff and Weiss are done with GoT.
But Kennedy does suggest that one possibility are films that jump even longer ago. “I think this is a huge opportunity to step into the galaxy in a little bit different part of the timeline,” she said.
Kennedy didn’t mention whether the underperformance of Solo: A Star Wars Story affected the “hiatus,” but she did re-commit to diversifying George Lucas’ universe even more than they have in the wake of The Force Awakens.
“We have a series of filmmakers that we’re bringing into the fold, that we can start to look at as directing talent, and we’re trying to bring women into the mix as well,” Kennedy said. “We’re making it very inclusive with the group of people that we’re pulling together.”
Anyway, let’s go back to some unambiguously good Star Wars news, namely how about that new lovable droid in the The Rise of Skywalker teaser?
(Via EW)