While we’re all no doubt hyped to witness the closure of the Skywalker saga with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker this week, many of us are already asking “What’s next?” for the Star Wars film franchise.
Well, according to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, there will be more Star Wars movies to come… eventually. But when they do, these new storylines may not necessarily come in trilogies, as was the case with the Skywalker saga.
“I think it gives us a more open-ended view of storytelling and doesn’t lock us into this three-act structure,” Kennedy said, speaking with LA Times. “We’re not going to have some finite number and fit it into a box. We’re really going to let the story dictate that.”
Kennedy shared how she got the green light from Disney boss Bob Iger to put producing movies set in the iconic 42-year-old franchise on hold for the time being. At present, Lucasfilm and Disney are “bringing in filmmakers” to suss out and incubate fresh ideas to expand the Star Wars tapestry for a new generation of movie-goers.
“We’re literally making this up from whole cloth and bringing in filmmakers to find what these stories might be,” said Kennedy to LA Times. “It can take a while before you find what direction you might want to go. We need the time to do that.”
At present, while we don’t exactly know what’s in store for us, we do know that Disney still has plans to release a new Star Wars film every two years, starting from 2022.
Previously, Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff were set to direct at least one of the new movies, but eventually dropped out. Kevin Feige is now the man set to take the franchise to a new direction, though we’re still pretty much in the dark about his exact involvement in Star Wars.
Jokingly, though, we can imagine Star Wars becoming a 20-film saga with Feige at the helm and in keeping with what Kennedy said earlier.
While we’re already impatiently waiting for the next movie in the storied franchise, there are still plenty of other Star Wars shows that can distract you for the time being. For starters, there is Disney+, which already is making waves with The Mandalorian, and will soon have the likes of fan-favourites such as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Doctor Aphra in their own solo TV series as well.
In any case, this is all in the distant future, and we’ll cross that bridge when we get there eventually. For now, the closure of the Skywalker saga is at hand.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker releases in theatres in Singapore on December 19, 2019.
Marion has a serious RPG addiction. Sometimes it bleeds into real life; he forgets to sleep because he thinks he has a Witcher’s body clock. Forgive him in advance if he suddenly blurts out terms such as “Mind Flayer” and “Magic Missile”, because never once does he stop thinking about his next Dungeons & Dragons game.