Rian Johnson Shoots Down Rumors That His New Star Wars Trilogy Had Been Canned

Despite claims to the contrary, Rian Johnson’s newfangled Star Wars trilogy is still moving forward at Lucasfilm.

The Internet was up in arms yesterday evening, when YouTuber and self-professed tipster Mike Zeroh claimed Johnson’s all-new Star Wars series had fallen on hard times – a combination of The Last Jedi backlash and Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s middling box office performance ($392M) supposedly led to the decision, leaving Lucasfilm with no choice but to commit to one new film from Rian Johnson, albeit with the possibility of a trilogy flickering into life if that open-ended adventure proved successful.

It’s total hogwash though, and Johnson himself has now confirmed as much via Twitter. When asked straight-up if his brand new Star Wars trilogy is still in active development, the filmmaker responded as so:

Yup. 👊🏻

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) August 29, 2018

Short and sweet, then, but it’s enough to debunk any false reports that Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy was suddenly in trouble.

It’s still early, early days, so it seems to be that the filmmaker is just now beginning to draft up a rough outline of where to go next once Lucasfilm has brought an end to the Skywalker Saga in 2019. And let’s not forget that Game of Thrones duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are also building a Star Wars trilogy of their own, though it, too, is still gestating in the formative stages of development.

Closer to home, J.J. Abrams and his team have officially commenced production on the so-far untitled Star Wars: Episode IX, with Matt Smith of The Crown being the most recent addition to the ensemble cast. Who’s he playing, though? That’s the big question, isn’t it?