To paraphrase Yoda: Always in motion is the future of Star Wars. Multiple outlets reported Thursday that Lucasfilm is developing a new Star Wars trilogy with Simon Kinberg, the co-creator of the animated series Star Wars Rebels and a creative consultant on 2015’s The Force Awakens. (Kinberg first came to the galaxy far, far away in 2012 as part of the Disney Star Wars writers’ room comprised of Michael Arndt, Lawrence Kasdan, and Kari Hart and Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group to map out Episodes VII, VIII and IX, plus the spinoff Rogue One.) And now the X-Men writer-producer who is also relaunching Star Trek for Paramount will write and produce the next Star Wars trilogy.
According to Deadline, Kinberg’s Star Wars trilogy will span Episodes X, XI, and XII as a continuation of the Skywalker Saga, the nine-episode franchise that began with George Lucas’ 1977 original and concluded with The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. However, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter disputed the report that the new Star Wars movie is Episode X, and the rumor is that the trilogy is instead a new story with new characters.
Disney and Lucasfilm did not immediately respond to ComicBook’s request for comment.
The Skywalker Saga chronicled the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker’s descent to the dark side (in Episodes I-III), twins Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker’s rebellion against the Sith Lord Darth Vader and the evil Empire (in Episodes IV-VI), and the rise of the First Order and the end of the Skywalker lineage (in Episodes VII-IX). Rey (Daisy Ridley), a descendant of Emperor Palpatine, assumed the Skywalker name and then set out to reestablish the new Jedi Order, a storyline that is set to continue in the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy-directed Rey Star Wars movie that recently lost Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight.
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Disney has not formally announced the new Star Wars trilogy, which will be produced by Kinberg and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. The studio already has Jon Favreau’s Mandalorian movie, titled The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for release in theaters on May 22, 2026, and dated two untitled Star Wars movies for Dec. 18, 2026, and Dec. 17, 2027. The Rey movie does not have a release date, and it’s unclear whether the Kinberg-penned first installment in the new trilogy is being eyed for one of those slots. Favreau’s film will be the first Star Wars feature to reach theaters since Rise of Skywalker in 2019, when Lucasfilm pivoted its output to streamer Disney+ with the live-action series The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (premiering Dec. 3).
Lucasfilm officially announced three new Star Wars movies at Star Wars Celebration in April 2023. Along with the Ridley-fronted Rey movie, James Mangold (Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) was tapped to direct a movie set thousands of years in the past at the dawn of the Jedi, while Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni will direct a movie set in the post-Return of the Jedi era of the New Republic. Filoni’s movie is set to close out the interconnected stories told across The Mandalorian, Boba Fett, and Ahsoka, when the emergent New Republic rebuilds while facing threats of the remnant Empire in the decades before the rise of the First Order in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker.
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“As you can see by all the television we’ve been doing, we’re exploring a lot of different storylines. This really spawns from what George Lucas said years ago, that he created Star Wars to move forward and backward along a mythological timeline,” Kennedy said during last year’s Star Wars Celebration. “Now we’re looking to broaden that timeline, building a rich future, expanding upon the present, going deep into the past to tell our stories.” Kennedy added the Star Wars slate would span “the past, the present, and the future” with stories set at the Dawn of the Jedi, long before the time of the Old Republic and the High Republic, and after the events of the Star Wars sequels that ended with the Resistance victorious over the First Order and the resurrected Darth Sidious.
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Star Wars movies that have been announced include the grounded Rogue Squadron movie, Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian movie, and a feature from Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi. In 2017, Lucasfilm announced a Star Wars trilogy from Knives Out filmmaker Rian Johnson, and in 2018, plans for a new series of Star Wars movies from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss that would not be connected to the Skywalker Saga.
Johnson’s trilogy and the Benioff-Weiss saga have since passed into the ether of the Force, and Lucasfilm opted not to move forward on a mysterious Star Wars movie that was being developed by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. Also in the works is a secret Star Wars project from Stranger Things and Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy, who has been developing that movie with a script from The Adam Project writer Jonathan Tropper.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premieres Dec. 3 on Disney+, with The Mandalorian & Grogu opening in theaters on May 22, 2026. The Mandalorian season 4 is also in development.