10 years ago today, Disney and Lucasfilm celebrated principal photography finishing on the first film in their new Star Wars trilogy, revealing its name — The Force Awakens — to the world and spawning a gazillion fan theories in the process. Now, one decade, five films, a fistful of Disney+ series, and a whole lot of online discourse later, today appears to mark the beginning of a bold new chapter for the universe George Lucas built. Per Deadline's reporting, Lucasfilm and Disney have sealed a deal for X-Men franchise alumnus and Rebels co-creator Simon Kinberg to write and produce an all-new trilogy of Star Wars movies.
Whilst Deadline were initially led to believe that Kinberg's new trilogy would comprise episodes 10 through 12 of the Skywalker Saga, industry insiders have since repudiated that intel, instead suggesting that these three new movies will in fact mark the beginning of a new saga entirely within the Star Wars universe. And whilst at this stage no filmmakers, actors, plot details, or titles are in the mix for Kinberg's proposed trilogy, with The High Republic era now firmly established both on page and screen, the New Republic era set to continue being explored in the upcoming Skeleton Crew series, and plans still afoot to explore what comes next for Daisy Ridley's Rey in a New Jedi Order movie, there are no shortage of exciting directions the franchise could shoot off in next.
With Kinberg now aboard to pilot a trio of new Star Wars movies, the Lucasfilm x Disney pipeline continues to grow at pace. At the time of writing, projects from Shawn Levy, Taika Waititi, Donald Glover, James Mangold, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy are all at various stages of development, alongside the already-in-the-can Andor Season 2, The Mandalorian & Grogu movie, and the in-the-works Ahsoka Season 2. And so, despite the recent disappointing cancellation of The Acolyte and Steven Knight's departure from the Rey movie, there's plenty on the horizon for Star Wars fans to look forward to yet. A decade since the Force awakened, it's showing no signs of going back to sleep just yet — and to that we simply say, "Yippee!"