Lucasfilm(NEW YORK) — Hold up, Star Wars fans. Reports of the death of future stand-alone films from that galaxy far, far away — like Solo, Rogue One, and a rumored Obi-Wan Kenobi project — appear to be premature.
Lucasfilm sources on Thursday characterized as “inaccurate” a widely quoted Collider report that future Star Wars movies falling outside of the regular trilogy storyline — the Episodes I to IX chapters — have been put on hold in the wake of the box office under-performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Solo is expected to top out at $400 million globally. That’s a blockbuster for any other movie, but the first Star Wars stand-alone film, 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, earned more than a billion bucks. The divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi grossed more than $1.3 billion while its predecessor, The Force Awakens, made nearly double that.
Even so, Lucasfilm tells ABC News there are still “multiple” Star Wars films currently in development that haven’t been officially announced. Those projects are moving forward separate from an already-announced Star Wars trilogy being overseen by The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, as well as another series of movies from Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
Star Wars: Episode IX, starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac, is set to hit theaters in December 2019. The film is being directed by J.J. Abrams, who also helmed The Force Awakens in 2015.
Lucasfilm is not yet talking publicly about the subject of any unannounced Star Wars films or their expected release dates. Fans will just have to wait and see.
As Yoda says: “Difficult to predict, the future is.”
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