A small announcement from the land of Lucasfilm a few moments ago gave us a couple of dates for our five year diary. StarWars.com have just revealed that Colin Trevorrow’s Episode IX of the Star Wars saga will enter cinemas on May 24, 2019. This follows their recent announcement that the as-yet-untitled Han Solo Star Wars Story film would be coming a year and a day earlier, on the 25th of May, 2018.

When The Force Awakens was in cinemas both Rogue One and Star Wars: Episode VIII (now titled The Last Jedi) had set release dates. Rogue One for the December of 2016 and Episode VIII for the follow May. The post-production process of The Last Jedi necessitated a new release date, and Rian Johnson’s film was pushed back to its current scheduled release date of December 15, 2017. It seems that Lucasfilm haven’t abandoned the May release dates after all.

Star Wars Celebration The Last Jedi

Another piece of news has emerged in the Star Wars galaxy in the last 24 hours, one that may not please some of the hardened fans of the series. When Rian Johnson was announced as writer and director of Episode VIII it was also mentioned that he would be writing Episode IX, though it was not confirmed if this was a story treatment, or an actual script. Trevorrow and his writing partner Derek Connelly are now confirmed to be writing the final film in the sequel trilogy alone. One Star Wars fan asked Johnson on Twitter,

While this is a shame for fans of Johnson’s work, it should be no great surprise. Johnson and Abrams both worked with Kathleen Kennedy and the Lucasfilm story group as custodians of the next steps in the Skywalker saga. Elements of Claudia Gray’s Star Wars novel Bloodlines were tweaked to fit in with The Last Jedi, and so we can assume that under the steer of the wider group, all bodies are pushing in the same direction.

And that’s not all – the announcement also gave us a release date for the fifth Indiana Jones film. Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg will reunite to deliver us another Indy film into cinemas on the 10th of July, 2020. Spielberg, adamant that Ford will not be replaced as the adventurous archaeologist, has turned to David Koepp to write the script for the film, details of which are virtually non-existant at this point. Ford, for those keeping score, will be three days shy of his 78th birthday when the film debuts.