Director Rian Johnson ("Brick," "Looper") has started filming for "Star Wars: Episode VIII," according to Disney CEO Bob Iger (via Entertainment Weekly).
The highly anticipated sequel to J.J. Abrams' well-received "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was initially supposed to start production in January, but principal photography was pushed back several weeks after Disney and Lucasfilm decided to delay the film's release from May 2017 to December of that same year.
Iger provided status reports for the studio's growing "Star Wars" universe while on The Walt Disney Co.'s quarterly earnings call. It's a good time to be in the "Star Wars" business as "The Force Awakens" became just the third film ever to cross the $2 billion mark at the global box office and has become the clear record holder for domestic grosses with more than $900 million. On top of the movie theater totals, Iger revealed that the film has done more than $3 billion globally in consumer products.
Iger said that Disney will maintain a clear focus on what made "The Force Awakens" such a hit as the "Star Wars" universe continues to expand.
"There is no better way to propel this franchise into the future than producing quality products," he said. "Filming of Star Wars: Episode VIII, the next chapter of the legendary saga, has just commenced and it will be in theaters December 2017. And production of Episode IX, a 2019 release, has also begun."
The closing trilogy film will be directed by Colin Trevorrow ("Safety Not Guaranteed," "Jurassic World"). It is unknown what type of production has begun on Trevorrow's entry into the franchise considering how far out the movie remains. In the meantime, Gareth Edwards' ("Monster," "Godzilla") "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," the first non-saga movie in Lucasfilm's new "Star Wars Anthology" series is due out later this year.
"Filming of Rogue One is virtually completed and we absolutely love what we've seen so far," Iger said. "This is the first of a set of planned stand-alone stories and we're already in preproduction on our next one, for release in May of 2018."
The next one will be a young Han Solo movie helmed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller ("The Lego Movie," "21 Jump Street") from a script penned by Lawrence and Jon Kasdan.
It looks like we'll be occupying space in a galaxy far, far away for quite some time.
