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Total Film
Total Film
Entertainment
Bradley Russell

8 years after it was announced, Rian Johnson's Star Wars trilogy appears to be dead after The Last Jedi director lifts lid on how far he got with it: "Nothing really happened"

Rian Johnson at the Poker Face season 2 premiere.

Well, this might be it. Rian Johnson's long-gestating Star Wars trilogy – first announced in 2017 – could be done for. That comes after The Last Jedi director revealed it only ever reached a "conceptual" stage.

"Nothing really happened with it," Johnson told Rolling Stone. "We had a great time working together, and they said, ‘Let’s keep doing it.’ I said, ‘Great!’ I would kick ideas around with [Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy]. The short version is Knives Out happened. I went off and made Knives Out, and was off to the races, busy making murder mysteries."

But Johnson's whodunnit saga starring Daniel Craig as quirky southern detective Benoit Blanc didn't exactly get in the way of a Star Wars trilogy that never got off the ground. The director confirmed it was "all very conceptual" and there wasn't an "outline or treatment" involved at any stage.

Johnson added, "It's the sort of thing if, down the line, there's an opportunity to do it, or do something else in Star Wars, I would be thrilled. But right now I’m just doing my own stuff, and pretty happy."

The director has plenty on his plate in the meantime, however. Poker Face season 2, starring Natasha Lyonne as a detective with a killer gut instinct as a human lie detector, has just aired its finale. The third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man, arrives on Netflix on December 12, 2025 – not long before the second volume of Stranger Things season 5 on Christmas Day.

For more on all things a galaxy far, far away, check out the confirmed upcoming Star Wars movies currently in the works.

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