It appears as if December won’t be the regular slot for future Star Wars movies as it has been announced today by Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger that Star Wars: Episode VIII will be released on May 26th, 2017.

It was also confirmed during this shareholder meeting that Rian Johnson (Breaking Bad, Looper) will write and direct the movie which continues the saga after the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It will reach the big screen forty years and a day after the release of Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977.

We’ve known for a while about Johnson though, so the big news here is obviously the release date.

However, after months of rumours and speculation, we now know that Gareth Edwards spinoff (which is still set to be released on December 16th, 2016) will be titled Rogue One, and is set to be the first film in a unique series of big-screen adventures that explores the characters and events beyond the core Star Wars saga. It has also been officially announced that Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) will star.

Interestingly, it’s mentioned that the idea for the story of Rogue One came from John Knoll, an Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic.