Back in 2012 when Disney bought Lucasfilm, the plan was simple. Starting in 2015, they’d release a new Star Wars movie every year — and that’s the plan up to 2019’s Episode IX. We all assumed a new Star Wars Story would follow in 2020 but publicly, very little had been said about the possibility. Until today.
Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Wednesday (via The Wrap) and said he recently spoke with Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy about the future of Star Wars.
“I had a meeting yesterday with Kathy Kennedy and we mapped out — well, we reviewed — the Star Wars plans that we have ’til 2020,” Iger said. “We have movies in development for Star Wars ’til then, and we started talking about what we’re going to do in 2021 and beyond.”
The 2020 movie, Iger then confirmed, is a third Star Wars Story which already has a writer attached. Who that writer is or what the Star Wars Story is about is, of course, a mystery. (As is what movie will premiere in 2021. Episode X, perhaps?)
When the standalone movies were first announced, two names were revealed: directors Gareth Edwards and Josh Trank. Edwards, of course, is making this year’s Rogue One. Trank eventually left his project, and the long accepted rumour is that his movie was put on pause for the 2018 Han Solo standalone, directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord.
While it’s unconfirmed, most people believe that the Trank movie was going to be a Boba Fett story written by Simon Kinberg. Years prior, Kinberg and Lawerence Kasdan were confirmed to be writing Star Wars spinoffs. Kasdan’s was later revealed to be the Han Solo film, while Kinberg’s remains a mystery. (Kinberg and Trank also worked together on Fantastic Four, for whatever that’s worth.)
So could the 2020 movie be the Simon Kinberg script? That would be the smart bet. Is it about Boba Fett, though? We honestly do not know. But it’s still great to hear the big cheese at Disney finally confirm the new era of Star Wars will not end with Episode IX.