The rumor that The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is walking away from his planned Star Wars trilogy has popped up a few times in the last year, to the point that the filmmaker himself felt the need to shoot down the assertion back in August. And while the hearsay once more found renewed traction last night, Johnson was again on hand to offer his assurance that the claim is still without basis.
The latest source for the rumor was a report from Super Bro Movies, who allegedly heard it from multiple sources that the Looper helmsman was walking away from the Star Wars franchise in order to focus on other projects. But when a fan asked Johnson point-blank via Twitter if the report had it right, the filmmaker confirmed that this was not the case:
“No it isn’t true, I’m still working on the trilogy. With all due respect to the movie bros, who I’m sure are lovely kind bros with good fraternal intentions.”
So, much to the disappointment of The Last Jedi’s more vocal detractors, it seems that the report was another false alarm, which means we’re back to awaiting further news on what’s currently a very mysterious post-Sequel Trilogy venture.
Though The Last Jedi came out to commercial and critical success, you probably couldn’t blame Johnson if he’d chosen to scrap plans for further movies given the brutal online backlash that he and his film continue to face. For the moment, it remains debatable just how much this negative response reflects the mainstream opinion on his work, though one good indicator will likely be the box office performance of Star Wars: Episode IX, which may have a lot riding on it when it arrives in theaters on December 20th, 2019.