The rumours have been circulating for a few months now, and Lucasfilm and Disney have confirmed that Star Wars will be taking a leaf out of Marvel’s precedent-setting playbook.
We heard back in November that Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes) and Lawrence Kasdan (Return of the Jedi) had been hired to start writing scripts, which at the time we thought were for Star Wars Episodes VIII and IX.
Now the studios reveal that the two will be consulting on the upcoming new trilogy, but that they will each in fact be writing spin-offs instead, which was a possibility we heard soon after the news first surfaced.
So far, two spin-off films have been confirmed, but it’s likely that we can expect more in the years to come – both sequels to those spin-offs, and further spin-offs to expand the universe even further.
Each film will be centred around a specific character, à la Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America. And, as you’d expect, rumours have begun to surface that Yoda could be getting his own film.
Marvel have done an amazing job at creating their own model, kicking things off with Iron Man all the way back in 2008, and bringing the whole gang together in The Avengers last year. And now it looks like the rest of the studios are quickly falling in line.
DC and Warner Bros. are eyeing Justice League in 2015, depending on the success of Man of Steel this year.
Star Wars Episode VII is tentatively slated for release in 2015, but with J.J. Abrams confirmed to direct the first new film in the saga, there came the possibility that that release date could be pushed back. Disney have previously said that they anticipate having a new Star Wars film in theatres every two years. And these two spin-off films are expected to be released following the release of Episode VII, so we’re still likely to have a good few years to wait before either comes to the big screen. But with new films comes new opportunities, and that’s certainly something to look forward to. Here’s to hoping we’ll have some more concrete news to bring you soon.
The Star Wars cinematic galaxy is about to experience a Big Bang. Lucasfilm is officially announcing new spinoff films that will expand the mythos and depths of the Star Wars universe in previously unexplored ways.
One of the standalone films will be written by Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriter of The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and co-writer of Return of the Jedi while the other will be penned by Simon Kinberg, writer of Sherlock Holmes and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The movies will be separate from the upcoming Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, on which Kasdan and Kinberg are also consulting, and are expected to be released sometime after Episode VII. Each standalone film will focus on a specific character, and two spinoff films are currently confirmed.
In a call to investors, Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, revealed while the original focus was on the highly-anticipated sequel trilogy, the idea of spinoff films was bandied about early and the additional films are now becoming a reality. “We are in development of a few standalone films,” he said, “that are not part of the Star Wars saga…there are now creative entities working on developing scripts for what would be those standalone films.”
