Future of Star Wars Movie Series Could Be Very Different, Exec Says

After Disney acquired the Star Wars brand in 2012, the company announced plans for a new trilogy, later confirming it would also make a series of spinoffs. Bouncing back and forth between the mainline entries and the spinoffs, Disney's plans is to have a new Star Wars movie out every year until at least 2019, which is when the new trilogy wraps up with Episode IX.

One big question is what will happen after this. Will there be yet another new trilogy, or should fans expect yearly standalone entries, or possibly a different setup altogether? This is a question that is currently being discussed at Lucasfilm, president Kathleen Kennedy told Entertainment Weekly.

"I have to honestly tell you: could we [do nothing but standalones]? Sure. But I don't know. We are looking at all of that," she said.

Another major element of the Star Wars series that is still to be determined is whether the franchise's iconic opening crawl will be in the spinoffs, beginning with December's Rogue One. According to Kennedy, Rogue One most likely will not have this opening moment.

"We feel that that is proprietary with the saga films," she said. "But how this evolves…? We haven't fully decided, and [traditional Star Wars elements] may be pretty sparse for this first one."

This isn't the first time this subject has come up, as Kennedy said in July that Rogue One and the future standalone movies may not have an opening crawl. What's more interesting is that the decision apparently still has not been made, less than a month before Rogue One comes to theaters.

The next spinoff will be a Han Solo standalone movie in 2018; there are also reportedly plans for a Boba Fett movie further in the future.

Rogue One may also sound different. John Williams is not the film's composer, as those duties are being handled by Oscar winner Michael Giacchino (Up, Call of Duty). The EW report says Rogue One's score will contain "slight homages" to Williams' famous music, though the bulk of the soundtrack will be original compositions.

The Gareth Edwards-directed film opens on December 16.