Today, at D23 Expo in Anaheim, J.J. Abrams took the stage, along with members of his Star Wars: The Force Awakens cast, to make two big announcements.
First, the cast and crew of standalone film Star Wars: Rogue One were finally unveiled, along with the very first official, on-set cast photo. The Gareth Edwards-helmed flick, scheduled for Christmas 2016, tells the story of a band of misfit Rebels who unite to steal the plans to the original Death Star, setting the stage for the very first Star Wars film. It's described as a different, "ground-war perspective" on the Star Wars universe.
The cast includes the already-announced Felicity Jones in the lead role, Diego Luna of Killing Them Softly and Milk, Ben Mendelsohn from TV's Bloodline, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen, writer/director/star of Let The Bullets Fly Jiang Wen, Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen from TV's Hannibal, Firefly's Alan Tudyk in a performance-capture role and Nightcrawler star Riz Ahmed.
The crew includes Greig Fraser as director of photography, Neil Corbould as special effects supervisor, production design by Doug Chiang and Neil Lamont, stunts overseen by Rob Inch, creature effects by Neal Scanlan and costume designers Dave Crossman and Glyn Dillon.
You can see headliner Felicity Jones and some of her Rebel cohorts in the cast photo below. An official title treatment was also released by Lucasfilm, which appears to have dropped the "Anthology" seen previously in the title in favor of the reordered title, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
The second major announcement came in regards to Star Wars: Episode IX.
That's right, J.J. Abrams' Episode VII doesn't arrive until December, Rian Johnson's Episode VIII is over two years off, but they're already announcing news about the third entry in this new trilogy.
Episode IX will be directed by Colin Trevorrow, the man who made Jurassic World, which has shot to the top of this year's box office charts and already become one of the top 10 grossing movies of all time. Trevorrow had recently confirmed that he won't be directing the sequel to Jurassic World, and now we know why.
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