Star Wars: Rian Johnson Confirms He’s Still Working on New Trilogy

In what’s become one of the fastest debunkings of a major rumor, there’s no problems behind the scenes of the new Star Wars franchise.

After word hit that Rian Johnson had walked away from his planned trilogy of Star Wars films, the director himself took to social media to confirm he is indeed still working in the galaxy far, far away.

The rumor hit when a site called Super Bro Movies reported that Johnson was walking away from the franchise, and other sites insinuated that it was because of fan backlash to Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

But Johnson himself made it clear that he was indeed still working on his spinoff franchise, which will involve brand new characters and not be involved with the ongoing plot of the Skywalker Saga.

Producer Ram Bergman, who works on all of Johnson’s films and will help on the new saga, teased what fans should expect during an interview with From the Grapevine.

“It’s a completely new trilogy that writer-director Rian Johnson, my partner, is going to create,” Bergman said. “It’s all new characters. Everything is new.”

Johnson himself explained his thought process for the new trilogy while speaking with the LA Times.

“It’s fun because it’s kind of thinking, ‘Okay, outside of the Skywalker story and outside of the recognizable iconography, what is this? What is Star Wars?’ Or what do we need to retain from that, to pull forward for it to still be Star Wars — and what can we leave behind?” Johnson said. “They’re all the big questions that need to be thought of. And even the ones that we don’t know the answers to are things we need to figure out if Star Wars is going to be vital and alive moving forward and not just be a waxworks. We’re going to have to figure out how to tell vital new stories.”

There’s no word yet on when the new trilogy will begin production or be released in theaters.