The planned Star Wars trilogy from Rian Johnson, the helmer of The Last Jedi, is still alive it seems.
You don’t need us to tell you that Disney’s Star Wars plans have been in something of a state of flux. Whilst the company’s Marvel Studios is a hit-making, money-printing machine that ticks over like a perfectly-engineered Swiss timepiece, Lucasfilm hasn’t yet managed to achieve the same infrastructure as yet for its Star Wars films. Creators come and go, projects are rumoured before being pulled and even when films finally grind into production, creative differences ensue. As a result, the quality of the films have dipped.
Even the films that could be considered successful in this new era of Star Wars, such as 2016’s Rogue One, saw huge problems going on behind the scenes, whereas others such as 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker were almost universally denounced, exposing some of the structural issues that have plagued Disney’s resurrection of the Star Wars franchise.
Since the saga’s relaunch in 2015, no film has been more divisive however than Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.
Whilst the 2017 film was critically lauded, it somehow sparked the unenviable feat of turning the franchise’s fanbase against each other, sparking toxic levels of debate which it could be argued has hurt the subsequent release of every Star Wars film since. At the time of the film’s release it was announced that Johnson was working on a new trilogy that was not connected to any existing Star Wars storylines, and would take place in a different corner of the Star Wars universe.
When The Last Jedi divided fans and was followed by The Rise Of Skywalker rather uncharitably retconning elements of Johnson’s film out of existence (presumably with the backing of Disney’s top brass), it seemed that Johnson’s aspirations of returning to the Star Wars universe to make his planned trilogy had dimmed considerably.
This was further compounded during last December’s Disney Investor Day when new Star Wars projects were announced, including Patty Jenkins’ planned Rogue Squadron, whilst Johnson’s planned trilogy wasn’t mentioned.
However news has emerged from Johnson himself (via an interview with USA Today’s Sarah Wilson), that his Star Wars films are still in the pipeline, and are just being held up as he works on other projects, such as a sequel to the excellent Knives Out.
I'm just going to post this now because I can see that I'm going to get a lot of requests –
Yes, Rian's SW trilogy is still on. No dates or timelines because he has other projects going on, but it is happening.
THAT IS ALL I KNOW ABOUT IT. 😁😁😁
— Sariah Wilson (@sariahwilson) February 16, 2021
It’s a surprising admission, but not an unwelcome one.
We’d be happy to see what Johnson does with a set of storylines over which he might have more creative control. But what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
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