In big, though not entirely unexpected news, Lucasfilm have announced that J.J. Abrams will direct “Star Wars: Episode IX.” The company had a vacancy when they parted ways with original helmer Colin Trevorrow last week, and while Rian Johnson was suggested as the frontrunner to replace him at the time, Johnson was non-committal to the point of negative over the weekend when asked about the prospect of going straight into another movie in a galaxy far, far away.
With a release date less than two years away, and a recent trend towards the Ron Howards and Stephen Daldrys of the world, it was unlikely that Kathleen Kennedy was going to go for some bold, untested helmer, and indeed, she’s gone for a safe pair of hands, with the news that Abrams will return to wrap up the trilogy he began with “The Force Awakens.”
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Abrams will be co-writing the script with screenwriter Chris Terrio, who won an Oscar for “Argo,” before becoming the DC screenwriter of choice for “Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice” and “Justice League” (though how much of his original draft is retained after the Joss Whedon reshoots is yet to be seen). Coming barely a few months after Jack Thorne was hired to rewrite Trevorrow and Derek Connolly‘s script, this seems to suggest a similar sort of situation with “The Force Awakens,” where Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan essentially started from scratch when Abrams came on board and Michael Arndt‘s script was mostly discarded.
Abrams had sworn off reboots and requels, and was still yet to pick a movie to helm after “The Force Awakens” finished up nearly two years ago, though he was developing TV miniseries “The Nix” with Meryl Streep to star — we imagine that’s on hold for at least a couple of years now. Abrams did a very strong job with his previous “Star Wars” picture, so there’s certainly many worse choices that Kennedy could have picked out, even if it’s hard to feel much of a sense of real excitement about it either in the way that the hiring of a Rian Johnson or a Lord and Miller inspired.
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We’ll see if Abrams can be the first director to make two good “Star Wars” movies when “Episode IX” opens, if it doesn’t get delayed (spoiler: it DEFINITELY will), on May 24th, 2019.
J.J. Abrams, who launched a new era of Star Wars with The Force Awakens in 2015, is returning to complete the sequel trilogy as writer and director of Star Wars: Episode IX. Abrams will co-write the film with Chris Terrio. Star Wars: Episode IX will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Michelle Rejwan, Abrams, Bad Robot, and Lucasfilm.
“With The Force Awakens, J.J. delivered everything we could have possibly hoped for, and I am so excited that he is coming back to close out this trilogy,” said Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.
