The current trilogy of Star Wars movies may be its last (for a while) as Disney and Lucasfilm turn their focus to anthology movies.
Star Wars is about to expand its cinematic universe from the main Skywalker saga with Rogue One, the first in a series of Star Wars “stories” that focus on particular characters or time periods.
After Rogue One comes the Han Solo origin story starring Alden Ehrenreich, which may expand into a trilogy.
But there’s still what we’d call the ‘main’ saga, the trilogy of trilogies that track Darth Vader and his offspring; the next in line is Episode VIII, set for December 2017, which picks up the story of Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac).
And Episode IX, which would be the ninth film in the series, might be the final traditional Star Wars movie, with the studio turning to the anthology format (or the superhero cinematic universe format) for the foreseeable future.
Related: Felicity Jones gives rousing speech in new Rogue One: A Star Wars Story clip
In an interview with EW, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy confesses that this is “a conversation going on right now … I have to honestly tell you, could we [do nothing but stand-alones]? Sure. But I don’t know. We are looking at all of that.”
Kennedy further reveals that the decision will likely be made in January, when she is sitting down with key Star Wars franchise decision-makers to make plans for the next phase of film releases:
“We are planning to sit down in January, since we will have had The Force Awakens released, now Rogue One, and we’ve finished shooting Episode VIII. We have enough information where we can step back a little bit and say, What are we doing? What do we feel is exciting? And what are some of the things we want to explore?
Although we’ll have to wait and see once Rogue One is released whether these anthology movies truly feel like ‘real’ Star Wars films, the idea for this type of stories within the universe actually came from George Lucas himself. Says Kennedy:
“George talked to me about doing [anthology films] when I first came aboard. He had often thought about doing it and he had actually written down three or four thoughts and ideas, directions you could go. Obviously inside the mythology there were lots of opportunities. So that was the first conversation I had… We talked a lot about the Jedi and the foundational ideas that George had thought about when he created the mythology. It was sort of spit-balling ideas.”
One of the anthology films that aren’t currently on the schedule, but almost made it, was the rumored Boba Fett origin story. In fact, Kennedy reveals that it was thisclose to getting a teaser announcement at the 2015 Star Wars Celebration, but when Trank was abruptly removed from the “future Star Wars movies” panel, leaving the project for unknown reasons, the idea fell apart.
It might still happen one day, along with countless other origin stories (we’re almost certain to get that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon buddy-cop movie now), if Lucasfilm indeed moves the franchise in that direction.
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