Director Gareth Edwards’ stand-alone Star Wars movie will be titled Rogue One and star Felicity Jones, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger announced this morning at the studio’s annual shareholder meeting.
Iger also confirmed that Rian Johnson will write and direct Star Wars: Episode VIII.
Rogue One is the first stand-alone movie in the Star Wars series and will explore characters outside the scope of the main movie series. The movie will be written by Chris Weitz and came from a story idea by ILM chief creative officer John Knoll. Knoll will serve as executive producer with Simon Emanuel and Jason McGatlin. Kathleen Kennedy and Tony To are producers and John Swartz is co-producer. The movie is scheduled to begin shooting this summer in London with a release date of Dec. 16, 2016.
Johnson’s Episode VIII is set for release May 26, 2017, and will continue the story from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, due out Dec. 18, 2015. Kennedy and Ram Bergman, are on board as producers.
