News About Star Wars VIII and Rogue One

When you pay billions of dollars for something, you don’t want it to sit around for long. This morning Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger shared big news with eager shareholders at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco—right across the street from Lucasfilm’s headquarters. With Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens well into production and due for release at the end of 2015, Iger confirmed that Rian Johnson will direct the yet to be named Star Wars: Episode VIII. The director will be gunning for a May 26, 2017 release date—40 years and a day after the release of the very first Star Wars: A New Hope.

Iger tossed an even more interesting morsel when he revealed some details for the first stand alone movie in the Star Wars universe. Rogue One is the first movie to break away from the core storyline and will be directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Chris Weitz (who has proven his writing finesse in this weekend’s release of Cinderella). Felicity Jones is the first actress confirmed to be in the film, which begins shooting this summer with an anticipated December 16, 2016 release date.