Next Star Wars Spinoff Movie May Be Announced Sooner Than You Think

The dust is just now beginning to settle from Star Wars Celebration and for many, it is the dual reveal of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and DICE’s video game sequel, Star Wars Battlefront II, that stole the show – followed closely by the moving video tribute to the late, great Carrie Fisher.

For those four days, Orlando, Florida was transformed into the busiest hub for Star Wars news in the whole galaxy, and even now, various morsels of information continue to find their way onto the interwebs. Case in point: MTV’s interview with Kathleen Kennedy, in which the Lucasfilm head honcho discussed the current layout of the timeline and, perhaps most exciting of all, the next spinoff movie.

After Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the Mouse House is quietly toiling away on an origin story for Han Solo, after appointing Phil Lord and Chris Miller at the helm. It’s currently in production ahead of a release in May of next year. Kennedy, meanwhile, already has one eye on the future. When asked about the status of the next standalone Star Wars pic, the Lucasfilm brass replied as so:

I think we’re getting close. My hope would be sometime around the summer. I never want to predict the creative process because it is its own thing, so we’re in the midst of those discussions right now.

Could it be that Disney has overhauled that scrapped Boba Fett offshoot? Chronicle director Josh Trank had signed on to craft a movie around the fan-favorite bounty hunter – and potentially right the wrongs of The Clone Wars in the process – but the wheels ultimately came off the project at the eleventh hour. It’s still gestating over at the Mouse House, according to various sources, so it’ll be interesting to see how things pan out.

On the topic of the Han Solo anthology film and the recent confusion surrounding Bob Iger’s comments – the Disney CEO seemed to suggest that Han Solo is merely a nickname – Kennedy stepped in to set the record straight.

I’m not sure that that’s entirely what Bob meant. There’s more to Han Solo’s name, but it’s not that it’s not his name. It’s obviously his name. It will always be his name (laughs).

Next to tumble off Disney’s production line is Star Wars: The Last Jedi (December 15th), before Phil Lord and Chris Miller deliver a Han Solo spinoff on May 25th, 2018. The only other known SW project in the works at Disney is Episode IX, but that could be about to change very soon indeed.