We know that the forthcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will bring the Skywalker Saga to its conclusion after more than 40 years. More Star Wars movies are certainly on the way, and several of them were even recently given release dates, but beyond that we knew little about what was to come. We just got a bit more information on that front as Disney CEO Bob Iger has now confirmed that the first Star Wars movie after Rise of Skywalker will come from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
We knew that the minds behind the very nearly over Game of Thrones series were working on a Star Wars project, or projects, for Lucasfilm, but we also knew that Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson was working on a trilogy of his own. We didn't know which of these ideas would be coming first, but now we do.
The news came from Bob Iger during a Q&A session at the 6th Annual MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit (via Attractions Magazine).
While we knew that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were working on something for Lucasfilm, we still don't know much about what that is. The word is the duo have been given a three film deal but it's not even clear if that's actually a trilogy, or three separate projects.
If it is a trilogy, then it would seem that the three Star Wars movies that were recently given release dates, beginning in December of 2022 and running every other year until 2026, would make up the series. If this first film that has been confirmed in a one-off project, then the other two could conceivably be something else.
The announcement that the Game of Thrones team were working on Star Wars came after the announcement that Rian Johnson was being handed his own Star Wars trilogy. I was certainly expecting that would mean we'd see those movies first. It's possible that Johnson's ideas are just taking longer to form. It's also conceivable that Benioff and Weiss have been working on this project longer than we were aware.
It will be interesting to see how this news is taken by fans of both Star Wars and Game of Thrones. The final season of the series is being met by...we'll say mixed feelings. There was a time when the idea of the team behind Game of Thrones working on Star Wars was incredibly exciting, but right now might not be that time. A lot of people are unhappy with the storytelling that is wrapping up the show.
With that next movie over three years away, don't expect to hear a lot of details about it anytime soon. In addition to Star Wars; The Rise of Skywalker, Disney has the first live-action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, set to debut on Disney+ later this year and the studio certainly isn't going to want anything to take the wind out of the sails of those projects.
