Yesterday, rumors caught on like wildfire that Rian Johnson’s planned Star Wars trilogy was no longer happening, and the Last Jedi director was instead focusing on other projects. This, as it turns out, appears to have been at best bad info and at worst wishful thinking on the part of whiny Star Wars fans. The rumor originated at a website called SuperBroMovies, and the post itself has now been deleted entirely. Other sites decided to jump on the bandwagon without pausing to consider the source or reaching out to get a comment or confirmation from Johnson or Lucasfilm, and thus the internet kind of exploded there for a bit with this new "news."
Luckily, shortly after the rumors hit, Johnson responded to a fan on Twitter to confirm the rumors were, in fact, false:
Johnson was of course hired to create an entirely new Star Wars trilogy after his work on Star Wars: The Last Jedi. He and Lucasfilm got along so well that they wanted to continue their partnership, and Johnson is lined up to write and direct at least the first installment of the new trilogy, which will take place in a new setting with new characters we’ve never met before in the Star Wars universe. He's currently in the midst of plotting out the entire three-movie arc.
This is in development concurrently with another series of Star Wars movies from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who are poised to start work on those films after they complete the final season of the smash-hit HBO series. Benioff and Weiss’ Star Wars movies are unconnected to and separate from Johnson’s trilogy.
While news of Johnson making a new trilogy of Star Wars films was greeted warmly by many fans, detractors of the direction he took The Last Jedi obviously were none too pleased. Fortunately, it appears Johnson is still very much intending on making them.
The filmmaker is currently in post-production on an original murder mystery called Knives Out, which boasts an all-star cast and opens in theaters this fall. One imagines after that hits theaters, we’ll learn more concrete details about when Johnson’s new Star Wars movies will be happening.
