Rian Johnson Reveals His Announced Star Wars Trilogy Never Made It Past The Concept Stage
Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson revealed that the announced trilogy he was supposed to work on following The Last Jedi never made it past the concept stage of development.
Back in 2017, before the release of The Last Jedi, Lucasfilm announced that Johnson would direct a new Star Wars trilogy. In a blog post on the Star Wars website, the company stated, “Lucasfilm is excited to announce that Johnson will create a brand-new Star Wars trilogy, the first of which he is also set to write and direct, with longtime collaborator Ram Bergman onboard to produce. … In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.”
Two years after that announcement, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy informed The Hollywood Reporter that Johnson’s trilogy alongside a trilogy from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would lay the groundwork for the next 10 years of Star Wars. She said, “We are looking at the next saga. We are not just looking at another trilogy, we’re really looking at the next 10 years or more.”
In 2023 at Star Wars Celebration, Kennedy informed Variety, “Rian and I talk all the time. He is unbelievably busy. So we’re not actively involved in anything at the moment because he’s doing another one of the ‘Glass Onion’ movies and then God knows what else. But he really wants to step back into the space. It’s a big commitment of time, so that’s really on him.”
Now, in a new interview with Rolling Stone where he discussed The Last Jedi as well as The Rise of Skywalker and his experience on Star Wars, Johnson was asked about what happened to his trilogy. He responded, “Nothing really happened with it. We had a great time working together, and they said, ‘Let’s keep doing it.’ I said, ‘Great!’ I would kick ideas around with Kathy.”
“The short version is Knives Out happened,” he continued. “I went off and made Knives Out, and was off to the races, busy making murder mysteries. It’s the sort of thing if, down the line, there’s an opportunity to do it, or do something else in Star Wars, I would be thrilled. But right now I’m just doing my own stuff, and pretty happy.”
As far as how far the project got, Johnson shared, “It was all very conceptual. I made Knives Out fairly quickly after. There was never any outline or treatment or anything.”
What do you make of Johnson’s revelation that his trilogy never made it out of concept?
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As goofy as the Star Wars universe is, he could have easily done both things by simply making “Lightsabers Out” or “Blasters Out”.
Even given the absolute dumpster fire that his Star Wars movie was I would probably have thought about going to see that movie. Geeze, just do a scene for scene remake of his last one in the Star Wars universe.
"Bullet: dodged" as far as I'm concerned.