Rian Johnson books return trip to the GFFA with a “brand-new” trilogy

The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson has clearly made quite an impression over at Lucasfilm, because they’ve just announced that he’s developing a new Star Wars trilogy. The new trilogy won’t be part of the episode/Skywalker cycle, and will “introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.” He will write and direct the first film at least, along with producer Ram Bergman.

There’s no release dates for these new movies yet. J.J. Abrams’ Episode IX is the last film on the schedule currently, with a release date of December 20, 2018.

Johnson’s The Last Jedi is next up, on December 15.

Some of us have been speculating that a standalone trilogy might fill the gap between IX and the (nigh inevitable) second sequel trilogy, and this indicates that may be how Lucasfilm is leaning as well… But we’ll just have to wait and see.