Rian Johnson’s ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy Is “Effectively Dead”

Rian Johnson‘s “Star Wars” trilogy is no more. According to a new THR interview with the director, the 2017 plans for him to helm three standalone films set in a galaxy far, far away are “effectively dead.” “A part of me will always be in “Star Wars,” said “The Last Jedi” director. “It’s so much a part of me and the way I think.”

READ MORE: Rian Johnson Says A ‘Knives Out’/Muppets Mash-Up Would “Break The Reality,” But He’d Still Love To Make A Straight-Up Muppets Movie

Does this news comes as a big surprise? Yes and no. As recently as 2022, Johnson said the tilogy was still happening. “I’ve stayed close to Kathleen [Kennedy] and we get together often and talk about it,” Johnson told Empire in August 2022. “It’s just at this point a matter of schedule and when it can happen. It would break my heart if I were finished, if I couldn’t get back in that sandbox at some point.” The director had similar things to say to Variety that October, too. “God, I hope so,” he told the outlet about a potential return to the franchise, citing his “amazing experience” making “The Last Jedi” and that him and Kennedy were “still talking about it.”

Of course, Johnson’s tune has changed more recently. Back in May, he admitted to The Guardian that his plans for “Knives Out” took precedent career-wise, and that’s the main reason his trilogy “never materialized.” “I’m focused on making other stuff,” he continued, “but that wouldn’t rule out it happening down the line. If I get back in the “Star Wars” universe someday, I’d be the happiest person.”

Now, as he makes the press round for “Wake Up Dead Man,” Johnson’s latest “Knives Out” mystery, it’s becoming clear a return to “Star Wars” isn’t in the director’s immediate future. His next project, described by Johnson as a “’70s paranoid thriller” with “a sci-fi twinge” and part of a two-film overall deal he signed with Warner Bros. in 2024, sounds intriguing, but is by no means a Lucasfilm project. And of course, Johnson wants to “formulate” a “Knives Out 4” with Benoit Blanc actor Daniel Craig, wherever the franchise’s future may land.

Again, more “Knives Out” isn’t “Star Wars”-related. So it appears, in the midst of Lucasfilm’s perpetually shifting schedule for future “Star Wars” projects since “The Rise Of Skywalker” hit theaters in 2019, that Johnson’s trilogy got lost in the pipeline. Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen. “The Last Jedi” was among the most divisive new “Star Wars” projects of the latest spate of films and Disney+ series, but also the most consistently interesting in its relationship to the franchise’s fandom, tropes, and overall legacy. In this writer’s opinion, Johnson’s sensibility is better suited to other things, like the ’70s paranoid thriller he’s working on now, but what he did while in the “Star Wars” universe remains novel, energetic, and subversive in a way most recent blockbusters aren’t. In that sense, Lucasfilm needs filmmakers like Johnson more than Johnson needs “Star Wars,” and it’s the studio’s loss that it couldn’t figure out how to move forward with its trilogy plans.

Ned Booth

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