Star Wars Episodes VIII, IX and Spinoff Details Revealed In Sony Hack

That’s because of information gleaned from — you guessed it! — e-mails being exchanged by top Sony brass and leaked following a massive cyber attack on Sony’s servers and e-mail. 

“Star Wars: Any studio would have lost Josh Trank and Rian Johnson to this, it’s freaking Star Wars,” Columbia Pictures President of Production Michael De Luca tried to reassure Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chairman Amy Pascal in one of a number of e-mails released this week. “Your After Earth writer Gary Whitta is writing Gareth Edwards’ stand alone Star Wars film. Simon Kinberg is writing Josh Trank’s. No one knows what they’re about but Boba Fett is rumored to be the subject of one. Rian Johnson as you know is doing the main ones, Episodes 8 and 9 of the Luke and Leia story lines, after JJ.”

Comic Book Movie takes that last comment to mean that Episodes VIII and IX will revolve around Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, which is perhaps a valid reading. It’s equally likely De Luca was simply providing context, and that by “the Luke and Leia storylines,” he may have meant the primary, non-spinoff stories.

Earlier this week, of course, franchise star Mark Hamill described Star Wars: The Force Awakens, due out a year from this week, as centering on new characters.

“This is about the new generation of characters; I think that’s the most important thing,” Hamill said. “It’s the opening act of a whole new approach to the storytelling. So I never thought that the stories would be – first of all, I never thought I’d be involved in it again, period. And then when George [Lucas] said that they wanted to do more, I rightly assumed that it wouldn’t be our story, because we had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This must be our offspring and the current generation, with us there lending the kind of support that Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness did in the original.”