DirectorJ.J. Abramsrevealed that filming forStar Wars 9will begin this summer in a message delivered to Japan’s D23 Expo over the weekend. This information falls in line with what had previously been estimated, but it’s nice to get confirmation straight from the man himself. Ron Howard also prepared a message at the Expo and then treated fans to an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette forSolo: A Star Wars Story, which will be released at about the time that production begins onStar Wars 9.
In addition to lettingStar Wars fansknow thatStar Wars 9will begin filming this summer, J.J. Abrams also revealed that he is currently in the middle of writing the screenplay with Chris Terrio. Abrams was announced as the new director ofStar Wars 9when Colin Trevorrow was let go from the project for the good ol' creative differences. Abrams directed 2015’sThe Force Awakens, which was criticized for being too similar toA New Hope, so it will be interesting to see how the director decides to take the story.
The Last Jedileaves a whole world of possibilities for character growth between Rey andKylo Ren. It’s assumed that we will see Kylo Ren go further to the Dark Side after his actions in Rian Johnson’s story and on the opposite side, we may see Rey become an even more powerful Jedi since she now has the sacred Jedi texts that she rescued from Ahch-To. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot out there and knowing Lucasfilm, we won’t know about it until the movie hit s theaters in December of 2019.
One aspect thatStar Warsfans are clamoring for is a backstory aboutSupreme Leader Snokeand the rise of the First Order after the decline of the Empire. The Resistance has some rebuilding to do, so it might the perfect time to flashback to the origins of the First Order and Snoke, especially since J.J. Abrams introduced those storylines inThe Force Awakens. Basically, betweenThe Force AwakensandThe Last Jedi, there’s a lot of loose strings that should be tied together in order to give fans some kind of satisfying closure to the latest trilogy.
Star Wars 9will be released on December 20th, 2019, 4 years afterThe Force Awakensopened in theaters. Theinitial release datewas scheduled for May of 2019, but it was pushed back when J.J. Abrams stepped on board to replace Colin Trevorrow. While we’re still far away from knowing anything official about the story, Abrams has confirmed that filming forStar Wars 9will begin this summer, which means we’ll have set photos to look forward to along with casting. Hopefully we see the return of Mark Hamill as a Force Ghost version of Luke Skywalker alongside Yoda and Obi-Wan. We’ll just have to wait and see. The original report of the summer production start forStar Wars 9came from Buzzfeed Up.
