The Force Is Strong On This One: Disney Plans All-New 'Star Wars' Trilogy
Star Wars fans rejoice! Disney and Lucasfilm have announced a brand new Star Wars trilogy with The Last Jedi Star Wars television series.
Disney's chairman and CEO, Bob Iger, announced on Thursday, Nov. 9, announced that a small screen adaptation of its epic space franchise is currently in the pipeline and the TV series will help launch its upcoming streaming service. The studio also announced TV adaptations of Pixar's Monsters Inc, High School Musical, and a Marvel project.
Rian Johnson will reprise his duties as writer and director of the new trilogy of films that will be a part of the Star Wars brand but will have completely new narrative, with original characters, set in a different galaxy. No release date has been announced for the upcoming trilogy.
The writer/director will be joining forces with longtime collaborator Ram Bergman, with whom he has worked on films such as Looper and Brick. Bergman also served as a producer on The Last Jedi alongside Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm.
"We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi," Kennedy said on the Star Wars website. "He's a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy."
"Star Wars is the greatest modern mythology and we feel very lucky to have contributed to it. We can't wait to continue with this new series of films," Johnson and Bergman said in a joint statement on the website.
Disney plans to pull all of its movies from other streaming platforms in a bid to push its entertainment streaming service, which it announced in August and is expected to arrive in 2019. The company intends to produce four to five movies a year for the subscription-based service along with original TV shows.
This exclusive programming strategy is similar to the one used by CBS when it used Star Trek Discovery to get viewers to subscribe to CBS All Access. Warner Bros also plans to use a live-action Titans series to sell its DC-branded digital service.
Iger also stated that Disney's forthcoming streaming service is expected to be priced much lower than Netflix's $10.99 a month subscription fee since the platform will have as much content as its competitor. "The price will reflect that," he added. "Our goal is to attract as many subs as possible starting out."
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is slated to hit theaters on Dec. 15. Check out the film's latest trailer below:
