The Rise of Skywalker is more than just the end of a story we’ve been following for 40 years, it’s also the beginning of uncharted territory for Lucasfilm. When Disney purchased the Star Wars rights from George Lucas, they already had a plan for what would come next. We’ve seen that play out since 2015 with a new movie every single year. But that all comes to an end in a matter of days, and with Star Wars going on a recently-announced hiatus, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has to chart a new, unfamiliar course.
“We’re literally making this up from whole cloth and bringing in filmmakers to find what these stories might be,” Kennedy told The LA Times. “It can take a while before you find what direction you might want to go. We need the time to do that.”
It took a conversation with Disney CEO Bob Iger to confirm a pause on the franchise, which was revealed back in April. At the time, a framework for the future had started to take shape. A new trilogy from Rian Johnson was planned, as well as a new series of films from Game of Thrones duo DB Weiss and David Benioff. That latter project has since fallen by the wayside, throwing things into limbo, but as of right now it appears no new Star Wars projects will happen until 2022 at the earliest. It’s still too early to tell if that will be the film by Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige.
“I think it gives us a more open-ended view of storytelling and doesn’t lock us into this three-act structure,” Kennedy said. “We’re not going to have some finite number and fit it into a box. We’re really going to let the story dictate that.”
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens December 20th!
