What's next for Star Wars after The Rise of Skywalker?

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will mark the end of the Skywalker Saga, but that doesn't mean the end of Star Wars.

Having delivered one movie a year since The Force Awakens in 2015, Lucasfilm is giving Star Wars a "bit of a hiatus" (on the big screen at least) after The Rise of Skywalker, and much like the MCU, we don't currently know all that much about the future.

What we do know is that Disney has set three release dates for upcoming Star Wars movies, even though we've got to wait a while for them. Those currently-untitled movies will arrive on December 16, 2022, December 20, 2024 and December 18, 2026.

The plan initially was that the first of these movies would come from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, who were hired in February 2018 to "write and produce a new series of Star Wars films".

However, the duo have announced they are stepping away from the Star Wars series.

"We love Star Wars," the pair said in a statement to Deadline. “When George Lucas built it, he built us too. Getting to talk about Star Wars with him and the current Star Wars team was the thrill of a lifetime, and we will always be indebted to the saga that changed everything.

"There are only so many hours in the day, and we felt we could not do justice to both Star Wars and our Netflix projects. So we are regretfully stepping away."

Though timing is cited as the main cause, some rumblings in the depths of the internet suggest it could be the poor fan reception to the final season of Game of Thrones. In addition, their recent panel at Austin Film Festival hasn't endeared them to fans, either. A Twitter thread live-quoting their admissions of how unqualified they were to take on the show has gone viral for the wrong reasons.

Regardless of the reason they've left, there are certainly some heaving a sigh of relief at the directing duo's departure.

This relief might be premature, though. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said: "David Benioff and Dan Weiss are incredible storytellers,. We hope to include them in the journey forward when they are able to step away from their busy schedule to focus on Star Wars."

Whether the series goes ahead with a different creative force or the dates are entirely abandoned remains to be seen.

The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson has also been hired by Lucasfilm to "create a brand-new Star Wars trilogy", with Johnson writing and directing the first movie of the trilogy.

And don't believe the rumours floating around, Johnson is still working on his trilogy.

"We are looking at the next saga," Kennedy said in April. "We are not just looking at another trilogy, we're really looking at the next 10 years or more. We're all sitting down to talk about, where do we go next? We've all had conversations about what the possibilities might be, but now we're locking it down."

The former-Benioff/Weiss project(s) and Johnson's trilogy appear to be distinct entities. With D&D's departure, however, we have no idea what will happen. The original announcement stated that the movies from Benioff and Weiss will be "separate from both the episodic Skywalker saga and the recently-announced trilogy being developed by Rian Johnson".

We haven't heard much about what Johnson is planning with his trilogy, only that he won't let criticism from certain Star Wars fans about The Last Jedi affect how he approaches it. This isn't to say he hasn't been developing his trilogy, but he has been primarily focusing on his upcoming movie, Knives Out.

It's unlikely that we'll see a Star Wars movie before that 2022 release, but even though Disney has announced those three release dates so far, it doesn't mean there won't be a Star Wars movie in 2023.

There's a possibility that Disney will want to repeat the approach that it tried for the current trilogy and the standalone A Star Wars Story offerings.

Benioff and Weiss were meant to work on a series, not a trilogy. If it goes ahead with different auteurs, it could be the beginning several one-off adventures set in the Star Wars world (a la A Star Wars Story), with Johnson's trilogy taking the place of the 'Episodes' and being released every other year from 2023.

However, with Avatar sequels taking up the big December release slot in 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2027, we wouldn't expect Disney to put a Star Wars movie against them, so Johnson's trilogy could move to a summer slot.

It's all speculation right now, of course, but it does fit in with Kennedy's comments that there are Star Wars movies planned for the "next 10 years or more".

The Skywalker Saga might be ending, but one way or another, Star Wars will live on.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be released on December 19 in the UK and December 20 in the US.

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Ian Sandwell

Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor.  Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world.   After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
 

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