Star Wars Spinoff Movies Official Announcement

Even though Disney CEO Bob Iger let the cat out of the bag earlier today while talking to CNBC, the StarWars.com website has just posted the official Lucasfilm announcement about the upcoming Star Wars stand alone movies. Here is the announcement in its entirety. "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.'"