We’re beginning to think Lucasfilm’s Star Wars franchise will outlive us all.
With The Last Jedi fast approaching its December release, the franchise’s creative minds have already ironed out firm plans for Solo: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: Episode IX, while Obi-Wan Kenobi has also been earmarked for a future anthology film. And things are just getting started.
While appearing on the latest episode of The Star Wars Show, Kathleen Kennedy spoke about how Lucasfilm’s crown jewel will grow and evolve over the next ten years, as viewers begin to get more and more acquainted with this new generation of heroes (and villains!).
We’re sitting down now, we’re talking about the next ten years of Star Wars stories and we’re looking at narratively where that might go; future stories beyond Episode 9, with these new characters, Rey, Poe, Finn, BB-8, but we’re also looking at working with people that are interested in coming into the Star Wars world and taking us to places that we haven’t been yet, and that’s exciting too because it’s a vast galaxy far, far away…The possibilities are endless!
Other spinoff projects that have been floated in the past include anthology films dedicated to Yoda and Boba Fett, the reticent mercenary who was last seen plummeting into the Sarlacc Pit during Return of the Jedi. But just as Stephen Daldry has been drafted in to flesh out Obi-Wan’s backstory, we imagine Lucasfilm has drawn up preliminary plans for countless Star Wars projects designed to explore each character in their youth. As Kathleen Kennedy so rightly says, the possibilities are endless.
Next up for Lucasfilm’s far-away galaxy is the release of The Last Jedi on December 15th of this year. And after that? The Star Wars universe will expand into relatively uncharted territory in order to chronicle Han Solo’s origins, and how he became the galaxy’s greatest smuggler.