Nobody is quite sure what to expect from Star Wars; The Rise of Skywalker, but we know even less about what's happening to the franchise once the current trilogy comes to a conclusion. Just about the only thing we know for sure is something we won't see, and that's more Daisy Ridley.
The actress recently appeared on Buzzfeed's AM to DM and was asked if her character of Rey would be part of the recently announced new Star Wars trilogy. Ridley wasn't even sure which of the two announced Star Wars projects was going to be coming next, but it doesn't matter, as she confirmed she's not going to be in either one. According to Ridley...
I mean, I can say I’m not in the next trilogy. No. I think, 'cause Rian always said…if it’s the Rian one, or it’s the guys that did Game of Thrones. I’m not sure. Whichever one it was, they always said it was going to be a separate story. So I’m not. No.
The next Star Wars project is the one coming from David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the pair behind the Game of Thrones series. In addition to that Star Wars: The Last Jedi director is also working on a new trilogy, but in both cases, the plan is to create new stories, and so it seems Daisy Ridley's Rey won't be there.
All of the new characters have proved to be popular with fans, and so it's certainly not surprising that we might see them again. Kathleen Kennedy herself has said as much, implying there's a good chance that the new characters have futures in the franchise.
It's certainly possible that characters other than Rey that we met in the current trilogy could appear in one of the newly planned trilogies, but depending on just how different a story it is, that might not be the case.
Of course, based on the current plan with the Star Wars franchise, if we're not going to be seeing Rey really soon, it could be quite a long time before we do. Three Star Wars movies are planned for release every other year starting in 2022. If those are three parts of a trilogy by Benioff and Weiss, which will then be followed by a Rian Johnson trilogy, that also comes out every other year, it will be a decade and a half before there's space in the schedule for a movie that brings us back to Rey.
Daisy Ridley does say that she loves the universe of Star Wars so it sounds like she's at least willing to consider coming back if and when the opportunity arises.
There are, of course, other options. We could see Rey's future play out on Disney+ rather than on the big screen. And there's always the possibility that there are plans for even more Star Wars movies that haven't been announced, but it does seem like Lucasfilm has decided it doesn't want to take the franchise down the Marvel Studios route and release multiple films a year.
Fans of Star Wars will have plenty to keep them going in the years to come, but fans of Rey may be waiting for quite a while.
