What Happened to Rian Johnson’s Star Wars Trilogy?

Star Wars fans learned this week that Simon Kinberg, co-creator of Star Wars Rebels (alongside Dave Filoni and Carrie Beck), was set to develop an all-new trilogy of films for the galaxy far, far away. This week also sees the seventh anniversary of Lucasfilm announcing that Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson would be developing an entirely new trilogy of Star Wars films. Despite the better part of a decade having passed since that announcement, neither Johnson nor Lucasfilm has offered substantial updates on the project, though neither have claimed the project was definitively dead. At this point, everything that’s gone on at Lucasfilm under ownership of Disney has left fans scratching their heads about the status of any reported or announced project.

In 2014, hot off the success of 2012’s Looper, Johnson was announced as the director of Star Wars: Episode VIII. Having earned critical acclaim on indie productions as opposed to Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams already being well-versed in blockbusters, fans were largely excited to see how Johnson’s storytelling sensibilities would fit into the saga. Six weeks before The Last Jedi landed in theaters, Lucasfilm announced that Johnson would “create a brand-new Star Wars trilogy, the first of which he is also set to write and direct, with longtime collaborator Ram Bergman onboard to produce.” When The Last Jedi hit theaters, though, it divided fans and seemingly complicated Johnson’s future with the franchise.

The Last Jedi went on to take in an impressive $1.3 billion worldwide and earn 91% positive reviews from nearly 500 critics, according to aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Some fans, though, didn’t appreciate the filmmaker’s swings and first started review-bombing the movie, which sits at only 41% positive reactions on Rotten Tomatoes, and even targeted its cast and crew with hatred, including racial attacks on actors like John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran.

[RELATED – Rian Johnson Says His Trilogy Will Feel Like Star Wars But in a Way That’s New and Fresh]

The divisive reaction to The Last Jedi would mark the beginning of a years-long trend of Lucasfilm deviating from announced plans for a variety of reasons. Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller departed the project (which was completed by Ron Howard) before Jurassic World‘s Colin Trevorrow exited Star Wars: Episode IX (which was taken over by J.J. Abrams). Since then, filmmakers Damon Lindelof, Patty Jenkins, Kevin Feige, Josh Trank, and Game of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have either been reported to be developing a movie or officially had plans announced before parting ways from the studio.

In the years since Johnson’s trilogy of movies was announced, Johnson and Lucasfilm have claimed the project wasn’t scrapped, but that it was just a matter of timing. One of the last public responses to the project that came from Johnson was in December of 2022, noting that it wouldn’t be “the end of the world” if the opportunity fizzled out definitively.

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world for anyone, I think,” Johnson revealed to Insider. “But I would be sad. I love the world. I love the people. I love Star Wars fans. I love the passion of how they engage in it, there’s nothing like telling a story in this world and then experiencing people truly connecting to it and letting you know that. It’s extraordinary. So I’m hoping I get to do it again, but nothing is the end of the world until the end of the world actually happens, which, what day of the week is it?”

Given the backlash that The Last Jedi received, it would be easy to see how Johnson or anyone else involved with the sequel would have soured on the saga for the ways trolls handled the experience, though the filmmaker claimed the experience made him love the franchise even more.

When asked by The New Yorker in November of 2022 if he still gets excited about the franchise as a fan, Johnson proclaimed, “Oh, f-ck yeah. Yeah. My God. Yeah. In terms of that, I think I love Star Wars even more now. I think what actually frustrates me is people’s perception that I had a negative experience somehow, or people’s perception that it was somehow a traumatic experience, or something. The reality is that it was a completely joyful experience even through the back end of it, the past few years, the reception of it.”

Since the announcement of Johnson’s trilogy, he went on to deliver Knives Out in 2019, which took in more than $300 million on a budget of $40 million and sits at 97% positive reviews. The movie sparked a bidding war among studios, which Netflix ultimately won, resulting in the 2022 sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Johnson also developed the TV series Poker Face with Natasha Lyonne, which is getting a Season 2 on Peacock, and he signed a two-picture deal earlier this year with Warner Bros.

In the five years since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker landed in theaters, of the various movies that have been announced, the only one to actually begin production is Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian & Grogu. At this point, the only promising component of Johnson’s trilogy is that no one has come right out to confirm it had been cancelled, especially how other filmmakers have been more vocal about their setbacks. Additionally, the reveal that any new project is announced comes with a mix of excitement and cynicism, as fans immediately begin to wonder if the just-announced project is just one more experience that will be abandoned before production can begin.

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Star Wars saga.

Would you like to see Johnson’s movie get made? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!