The plan was announced last year. Disney will be making one Star Wars “episode” film (that is to say, films that exist in the same direct story as the seven previous Star Wars feature films) every odd-numbered year, and one “spinoff” film (i.e. standalone stories that take place in the Star Wars universe, but don’t directly interact with the “episodes”) every even-numbered year. Since this is Star Wars, fan speculation has been wild and varied. Would it be a Boba Fett film? A Chewbacca film? A film about the young Han Solo?
According to StarWars.com, following an announcement from Disney chairman Bob Iger, the first official Star Wars spinoff film, to be written and directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters, the 2014 Godzilla), will be called Rogue One. Rogue One will star Academy Award-nominated actress Felicity Jones, and will be written by prolific Hollywood screenwriter Chris Weitz. It is currently set for release on December 16th, 2016. There are no hints yet as to the film’s story, but “Rogue One” likely refers to the leader of the Rebel fighters who originally took down the Death Star in 1977.
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In addition to that, the release date of Star Wars: Episode VIII (only its working title), was also announced. The film will be written and directed by Rian Johnson (Looper, The Brothers Bloom). Episode VIII is set to be released on May 26th, 2017, which is 40 years and one day after the release of the 1977 original. We know nothing as to the story of Episode VIII (or Episode VII for that matter), so speculation begins now.
Stay tuned to CraveOnline for more Star Wars news as it comes in.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
