Looks like sending Bruce Willis back in time to kill Joseph Gordon-Levitt paid off because Deadline is reporting that Lucasfilm is in talks with Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick, Breaking Bad) to write and direct Star Wars: Episode VIII and IX. Considering that they’ve already tapped Godzilla director Gareth Edwards and Fantastic Four director Josh Trank for upcoming Star Wars spinoffs, Disney and Lucasfilm seem intent on reaching out to a younger, exciting class of directors to make its franchise revival as mouth-foam-inducing as humanly possible.
Directing back-to-back Star Wars films will certainly be a challenge for Johnson, but as we all know from Looper, he’s no stranger to complex continuity:
We’ll report more on this story as it develops. In the meantime, what do you make of this announcement? What stories would you like to see Johnson tackle? Let us know in the comments below.
News flash: No new SW will be the original trilogy… So haters can keep on hating, but JJ is this series’ best bet to find success with fans and with an untapped crowd. He’s going to make people into SW fans that didn’t know they could be fans.
You have to take this news with a gigantic grain of salt. We haven’t seen how badly JJ Abrams intends to bury this franchise with Ep. VII.
I predict it’ll make the prequels look amazing by comparison….
I’m off to fall asleep in front of Episode I….
That’s great and all, but I still want to see Max Landis take a stab at a Star Wars script.
I believe that Disney has made it clear that they’ll be leaving the EU alone. I’ve always been a fan of the Thrawn or Jedi Academy trilogies, but Disney has pretty much ruled that out. I think something with Jacen Solo would be fascinating to watch played out: his travel to the dark side, especially.
As long as they keep time travel out of SWars, I’m fine.
Time travel doesn’t exist in Star Wars. There were a few instances of time travel in the Expanded Universe (Crosscurrent by Paul S. Kemp is one example) but they are very rare. In my opinion, time travel does not fit with what Star Wars means.
What about fanboy JJ Lensflare? They’re dumping him from the franchise before he’s even done with VII. He broke Ford’s leg, didn’t he?
His excessive use of lensflare blinded Harrison Ford, and that’s why he suffered the accident.
he’s already stated and owned up to the lens flare issue in a press conference about a year ago. quit trolling.