The first trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrived on Friday and it’s fair to say it went down a storm. Lucasfilm will likely be overjoyed with the reaction to the Episode IX teaser as the Star Wars fandom desperately needed something to unite it after the division caused by all the fighting about the relative merits of The Last Jedi over the past two years.
A lot of folks disagreed with the bold direction Rian Johnson took with the franchise in the 2017 installment of the saga, which has led to many rumors that the filmmaker’s planned spinoff trilogy won’t be happening anymore. The director himself has repeatedly dismissed these as baseless, but now we’ve heard from the horse’s mouth that Johnson is indeed set to make more Star Wars movies.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Aaron Couch caught up with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy at this weekend’s Star Wars Celebration. As we previously reported, she stated that there are plans for the next decade of the saga, which include the trilogy coming from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who Kennedy revealed she’s meeting with soon. As for the TLJ helmer, the exec said: “Rian Johnson is also deeply engaged in what we’re doing.”
Johnson’s remained tight-lipped about what his trilogy could consist of, but one report from earlier this year claimed that it would be aimed at younger viewers. This would be a bit of a surprise, considering Johnson’s filmography to date, but The Last Jedi did prove that he likes to subvert our expectations, so who knows, there might be some truth to that. There are also fan theories that that Force-sensitive child on Canto Bight will play a role.
For the moment, though, J.J. Abrams is picking up the Star Wars baton for The Rise of Skywalker, and Johnson is certainly a fan of what he’s done, judging by his reaction to the trailer.