After the massive commercial and critical success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the world wants to know what's next in the Skywalker saga. There’s both good news and bad news regarding that topic, because while we have to wait another two years for Episode VIII, Disney will premiere the first “anthology” film (Rogue One) in December. With that being said, Star Wars: Rogue One will flashback 30 years before the events of A New Hope and feature an entirely different plot and characters. What does that mean for the highly anticipated Star Wars: Episode VIII?
Directed by Rian Johnson (Looper, “Breaking Bad”), Star Wars: Episode VIII is set for a 2017 release date. That may seem far away, but rest assured that work is already underway on the next chapter of Disney’s new trilogy. Pre-production filming began back in September and principal photography starts this month in Ireland. The Force Awakens’ J.J. Abrams and Daisy Ridley also spoke very highly of the Episode VIII script.
The general consensus seems to be that The Force Awakens played it safe in order to draw viewers back in and set up Episodes 8 and 9. Recently John Boyega revealed that Episode VIII would be “darker,” so it will be fascinating to see how the rest of the trilogy plays out. It will be up to Johnson to properly pass the torch to Colin Trevorrow, director of Episode IX, to ensure that the new Star Wars trilogy concludes successfully.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight (via Collider), Trevorrow commented on why this is important:
“A story must evolve or perish, and Rian and I are working closely together to make sure our stories build off of each other and continue to evolve and take us to new places, and I think that’s what the fans expect and what they want.”
It’s going to be a looongggg wait to find out how exactly the two directors pull this off. As mentioned, Star Wars: Episode VIII is scheduled for release in 2017, with Episode IX arriving in 2019.
