We’re just a couple days away from the theatrical premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the third and final film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, as well as the ninth and final film in the Skywalker Saga overall. Once the dust settles, Disney has no plans for new Star Wars movies until 2022.
In an interview from The Los Angeles Times, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy says that, during production on The Rise of Skywalker, she asked Disney CEO Bob Iger if he’d be comfortable slowing down on Star Wars movies, so she could have time to pivot to something new. “What we’ve been focused on these last five or six years is finishing that family saga around the Skywalkers,” Kennedy said. “Now is the time to start thinking about how to segue into something new and different.”
What does that mean practically? Well, she says that the series doesn’t plan to abandon the characters it introduced in the sequel trilogy, so you don’t need to give up hope of seeing characters like Rey or Finn or Poe again. Structurally, though, Kennedy is looking to move beyond trilogies. “I think it gives us a more open-ended view of storytelling and doesn’t lock us into this three-act structure,” she said. “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.”
We know that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has an idea for a Star Wars movie. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is working on an idea for one as well. Beyond that, there are no details as to what we might see once 2022 gets here. “We’re literally making this up from whole cloth and bringing in filmmakers to find what these stories might be,” said Kennedy. “It can take a while before you find what direction you might want to go. We need the time to do that.”
In the meantime, on Disney+, we’ve got The Mandalorian season 2 already in development, as well as live-action shows about Cassian Andor on the one hand and Obi-Wan Kenobi on the other.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters on December 20, and everyone is eager to see how the world reacts. Kennedy and her team will be watching. “It does matter what they say and what they care about,” she said, citing a fan campaign as the reason LucasFilm revived The Clone Wars on Disney+. “All of those things play a role in our decision making.”
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